Edward Furlong was set to return as John Connor in ‘Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.’ However, he recently told the ‘Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum’ podcast that he lost the role due to a serious mistake involving drugs. Actually, it almost took his life.
Furlong was super excited about joining Arnold Schwarzenegger for another Terminator movie. He even signed a big deal that promised him a lot of money — more than he had ever seen before. But there was one important rule he had to follow:
“That was the contract; they were like, ‘We want you to not do any drugs.’ Whatever, just sign a clause in the contract – no drugs. It was the best deal that I had ever gotten in my life. For T3, it was like a lot of money, like millions. And I had never made that kind of money, so I called my friends, and I’m like, ‘Guys, I just signed this f*cking awesome contract, we’re going to go to the club, we’re going to get a bunch of blow, and we’re going to… that’s it. This is the end, man, we’re going to f*cking do it.’”
Furlong didn’t take this seriously. He decided to celebrate his new role by using drugs. This decision led to an overdose at the club:
“I remember walking out, and then all of a sudden, I wake up, and the lights in the club are on. People are standing around me, my buddy’s crying, he’s holding me. I’m like, ‘What happened?’ He’s like, ‘Dude, you f*cking OD’d.’ And I’m like, ‘I didn’t OD, what are you talking about?’… The ambulance came; it was so embarrassing. The news caught wind, and, of course, they’re like, ‘Yeah, you know, you lost the movie. We’re not going to do it with you.’”
He Thinks This Was For The Best
Furlong admits he was already facing a lot of problems in his life, and staying on that path could have made things worse:
“That was the worst luck or maybe the best luck… I was already on a downward trajectory in a lot of ways, so maybe if I had [kept the role] that it would’ve been worse.”
‘Terminator 3’ didn’t do well, and some think this is because Furlong wasn’t there. Nick Stahl, Christian Bale, Jason Clarke, and Thomas Dekker took the role after him.
Furlong returned to the franchise again, but sort of. His voice and appearance were used in the 2019 movie ‘Terminator: Dark Fate.’
You can watch the complete interview below.
