"If you workout, you stay in shape and feel good, which is good at any age." Arnold Schwarzenegger
It's one of those moments that haunt you forever. You're an hour early for an interview and step outside to have a blueberry muffin – which you know is so wrong for the 2013 diet, but you're starving.
Somehow before your fingers touch carbs, you feel someone is looking over your shoulder. Someone large.
You just know it's him.
In my case, it's Arnold! Ah-nuld. The Govern-ator. Conan. The Terminator. I put down the muffin. Fast.
For a half second, I think he will scold me for my pastry madness, but he doesn't. The truth is I've interviewed Arnold for years and he has come over to say hello. On a cold winter day, we just stand outside a gorgeous suite at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills where he shocks me by picking up a buttery croissant.
Wait, Arnold eats carbs, too! For a moment, I think I should call CNN and put this on the crawl.
"You have to give yourself a break in life," says Arnold Schwarzenegger, munching away at his breakfast. "Why not?
He's 65-years-old now and has some scars to go with those years. Arnold had a tough 2012 that saw the breakup of his marriage to Maria and the news that he had fathered a child with their former housekeeper.
He's also not the Governator anymore after seven years of service.
"My life is changing," he admits.
AGING WELL AS A MIDLIFER AND FITNESS TIPS
To get through it all, Arnold remains committed to aging very gracefully. He still logs time in the gym to clear his head and keep his body in tip top shape.
In person, he's still large and in charge, but a bit leaner today in a steel grey suit and sky blue shirt.
That trademark accent makes you smile.
"I just got back from a one-week ski trip with my kids in Sun Valley," he says in his trademark, thick Ah-nuld accent. "Of course, kids try to out ski you. It becomes a fierce competition.
"I can still do all that stuff," he insists with a wry smile. "I feel great physically."
Ask him about aging and Arnold just shrugs.
"If you do workout, you stay in shape and feel good," he says. "I feel good right now. Working out is key."
How does he feel about getting older?
"I can't tell you about aging except that it's tough," he says. "I'm no different than you. We all look in the mirror and say, 'What happened?' You once had muscles and now slowly they're deteriorating.
"Again, you have to spend time in the gym. That's a must," he says, insisting that he still does his weight workout and cardio. It also helps him get in shape for movies like "The Last Stand" opening Friday.
HIS NEW MOVIE "THE LAST STAND": NOT ACTING HIS AGE
He plays the sheriff of a small Arizona town in "The Last Stand" opening this Friday. He must stop a drug cartel kingpin who is planning to race through town on the way to the Mexican boarder.
Schwarzenegger say he insisted that his new movie not only reference his aging action hero status, but also even allowed the writer to poke fun at it.
He says, "This movie was a perfect test for me because it required a lot of stunts and a lot of action and physical work.
"The director was a fanatic about seeing as much of me as possible," he says. "Only if I could have gotten killed, the stunt guys took over."
He says doing action is a different feeling these days.
"It's different when you're 65," he moans. "It's different than being that 35 year old guy running around. But the great thing about this movie and the ones I will do is that I won't do me playing the 35-year-old action hero again."
He says the jokes about his age including calling him a grandfather in the film did make him wince, but he insisted that they be there.
"They were appropriate jokes. You don't want to dwell on the age, but I can make fun of myself," he says. "Clint Eastwood does that so well. I can do it, too."
STARTING OVER AGAIN
Arnold admits that after seven years in politics, he was ready to get back to the movie biz.
"When you leave the movie business for seven years, it's a scary thing to come back," says one of the biggest box office stars of all time. "You don't know if you'll be accepted again. There could be a whole new generation of action heroes.
"Things change very quickly in our business," he says.
At age 65, he still loves challenging himself to do stunts.
"I did a car chase scene through a corn field in this movie," he marvels. "It's not like driving fast on a road. You don't know where you're going or if there is a ditch coming up. I had to do this chase for several days where I drove through six-foot rows of corn.
"Of course, I had to be really careful not to wipe out the car the first day of shooting," he says.
"I could hear the stunt coordinator screaming, 'Faster, faster, faster.' I'm driving 80 miles an hour through a cornfield with ears of corn flying off the car," he recalls.
He laughs before admitting, "It's still a great thrill. I was also thrilled to do another movie last year where at midnight, I was swimming in ice cold water.
"What an experience!" he cries. "I've already lived 65 years and I'm still doing these things in my life."
He isn't missing politics.
"I didn't want to be a career politician, so I went back into the movie business," he says. "Now, I don't sit there and miss politics. There isn't much I miss about being governor.
"I'm glad that Jerry Brown is now schvitzing it out," he says.
He's planning on doing a sequel to "Twins" and even perhaps another "Terminator" film, plus will play "Conan the Barbarian" again.
One project close to is heart is a new museum in his hometown of Austria. It's an Arnold museum.
There is even a new museum in his hometown in Austria dedicated to all things Arnold.
"It's in the house I grew up in as a boy," Schwarzenegger marvels. "They decided to make it into a museum.
"I provided them with a lot of things including the original weights I lifted when I was 15," he says. "The whole house is filled with memorabilia.
"It's nice," he says. "It's nice that people care."
