During the filming of The Last Days of Pompeii, Reeves dislocated his shoulder when his chariot crashed into a tree. Reeves pulled the joint back into its socket by himself and chose to continue filming and performing his own stunts. Swimming in a subsequent underwater escape scene he reinjured his shoulder. The injury would be aggravated by his stunt work in each successive film, ultimately leading him to retire early.
Excerpts from his interview:
TPV: I heard you were offered the role in A Fistful of Dollars and didn't take it.
SR: Yeah. The director of The Last Days of Pompeii was an older gentleman and he was just a figurehead. Sergio Leone was his assistant and did about 90 percent of the directing. We had a little tussle one time because there was a scene where I was being filmed behind bars and he told me to do it a certain way, and I said 'Why?' - in other words, I needed a motivation. I'm not a great method actor, but you have to know why you're doing something. So he said, 'Because I said so.' I didn't like that, and I went after him. They grabbed me, and I cooled off, and after that everything was fine.Later he wanted me to do this Western, and I love the West. He told me about it, but then I found out it was based on Kurosawa's Yojimbo - he had taken it scene by scene and changed it into a Western. In fact, after it came out, Kurosawa saw it and demanded either a royalty or a buy-out. I personally thought, how could an Italian director make a good Western out of a Japanese samurai film? So I turned it down on that basis. That was the first Western in Italy, you know, and it turned out well. But also, I wouldn't have felt real good smoking a little cigar and squinting my eyes for three months. Frankly, Clint Eastwood was much better for it than I would have been. There are certain parts for certain people. To me, Johnny Weissmuller was the greatest Tarzan ever, And some other people, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno, have tried to make Hercules and they bombed. If anybody tried to play Rocky but Stallone, they would bomb. Same with Eastwood; he was perfect for that part.
TPV: Speaking of Schwarzenegger, what do you feel about the fact that you had to go to Italy to become a star, and he did it by coming over here?
SR: The times have changed. When I was going to high school the football coach would tell the players, 'You can't swim because it softens up your muscles. You can't lift weights because it makes you musclebound. You can't ride a bicycle because it makes you run slow. All the things that professional football players do today, hit the weights, ride the bicycle, do some swimming to loosen up, I had to fight for every inch of the way. Similarly, people weren't accepting bodies like mine on the screen, and if I'd had a face that wasn't, shall we say, noble, it probably wouldn't have happened for me either, because people weren't ready for just the body.
TPV: Have you ever crossed paths with Schwarzenegger?SR: I met him about 15 years ago for the first time. We were at Jack La Lanne's 65th birthday party, and Schwarzenegger came up to me and said, 'Steve, you've always been an idol of mine.' I looked him straight in the eye, half-smiling, and said, 'Don't give me that crap, Arnold. I read your book, and Reg Park was your idol.'He said, 'Well... only because I knew I couldn't look like you.'
TPV: Did you have to work out a few hours a day on the set?
SR: No. That's an amazing thing. My body responds so well to exercise, and it keeps it so long, that I didn't have to. I didn't take any steroids, they didn't exist at that time. It was just easy for me to get in shape and to stay in shape. During the 15 years I was in Europe, I would work out possibly one month a year, usually the month of May. I lived in Switzerland most of the time and I would go skiing and take walks with my dog. But the food there was so great that I would gain maybe 10 pounds during the winter. So during May I'd work like son-of-a-gun. Run through the mountains there, use the weights, and get in top form that month, and that would last me through the season. During filming you're too exhausted I get a decent workout, and I really didn't need because the stress that there is in acting kept the fat off me and the muscle didn't want to go away.
