Ahead of it’s Netflix premiere on May 25, Collider’s Steve Weintraub spoke with two of the stars from the cast of FUBAR, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The series is an action comedy from showrunner and executive producer Nick Santora (Prison Break), that puts a hold on Schwarzenegger’s in-series retirement and sees him return to bullet-dodging, Jeep-hopping explosive action. While promoting the show, co-stars Jay Baruchel (BlackBerry) and Gabriel Luna (The Last of Us) rave with Weintraub about sharing screentime with The Terminator and discuss their time on set.

FUBAR takes cinematic action set pieces and box office stars like Schwarzenegger, and gives us an eight-episode series about CIA operative, Luke Brunner (Schwarzenegger), who’s completed his final mission and is ready to retire. With big plans to win back his ex-wife Tally (played by Fabiana Udenio) and reconnet with his daughter Emma, played by Top Gun: Maverick’s Monica Barbaro, Luke is surprised to learn he has one last assignment. When he travels to extract a fellow operative under the codename Panda, Luke and his daughter Emma find out they have a lot more in common than they knew, and a lot to unpack. FUBAR also features Travis Van Winkle, Adam Pally, and Fortune Feimster.

In their interview, which you can watch or read below, Baruchel and Luna, who play Carter and Boro respectively, talk about what it’s like to work alongside a childhood hero, their favorite Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, Schnitzel Fridays, and which episodes are their favorites. Luna also discusses being “overwhelmed” by the positive reception for The Last of Us.

COLLIDER: Jay, I've now seen you more than I see most of my friends.

JAY BARUCHEL: [Laughs] I'm sorry, and nice to see you again as well.

First of all, great to talk with you both this morning, or this afternoon– whatever the fuck time it is.

BARUCHEL: No idea.

Exactly.

GABRIEL LUNA: Alright, man! You cracked the lid on the “fuck.” I love it, Steve, thank you. So now we can actually tell you the name of the show.

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Image via Netflix

[Laughs] Wait, I just realized that! So I heard you had to have been in a Terminator movie to be in this show, so Jay, how did you actually get cast?

BARUCHEL: I was in a RoboCop, so it's the next best thing I guess.

LUNA: You know, Arnold has a story about that… he saw Paul Verhoeven at, I think it was Musso’s or something, around that time, and he walked up because he wanted to work with Verhoeven, and Verhoeven thought he was coming over to get mad at him because he ripped off The Terminator, or at least in his mind he did. He said, “I thought you were going to come tell me I ripped off The Terminator!” [Laughs]

BARUCHEL: That's cool.

Listen, you've both done scenes with Arnold, and I'm curious, does it take a few seconds, when you're standing across from him and you're doing that first take, when you're first working with him, to sort of take a moment to not be a kid?

BARUCHEL: Yes! And you're never not a kid. I never got used to it, you know? It was a constant thing to worry about because I was like, “I've got to act and I've got to be present,” and someone said acting is reacting once, but meanwhile, I'm sure there's a lot of rushes or dailies of me just in awe. It's crazy, it's still crazy. It was never not crazy.

LUNA: Is that a Total Recall shirt?

BARUCHEL: It is.

Total Recall

Oh, it is! And I just interviewed Arnold, and he got a real kick out of it, so day made.

BARUCHEL: Attaboy, Steve!

LUNA: But Jay’s absolutely right, it never any– it's always as incredible as it was the first time.

Listen, you guys are obviously both fans. Do you have a favorite Arnold movie?

BARUCHEL: Certainly.

LUNA: Yeah, Last Action Hero, I think.

BARUCHEL: I go Total Recall.

By the way, both are great.

LUNA: I mean, I think Terminator, really, but for me, Last Action Hero has a special–

BARUCHEL: Oh, it’s spectacular.

LUNA: But the thing about all his films is, there's always an entry point for kids, right? You know, you can see yourself as John Connor, you can see yourself as the kid in Last Action Hero, one of the kindergartners in Kingergarten Cop, you know what I mean? Alyssa Milano and Commando.

BARUCHEL: That would be my number two, Commando would be number two.

LUNA: Yeah, Commando’s great.

Really? Number two is Commando?

BARUCHEL: It would have to be, yeah.

Interesting!

BARUCHEL: That movie goes so fucking hard, like, he kills everybody!

LUNA: And he's in peak condition.

BARUCHEL: He’s a fucking unit in that movie!

LUNA: Yeah, he takes the Jeep all the way down the hill–

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Listen, by the way, there's no wrong answer. I mean, there's no wrong answer.

BARUCHEL: Well, there is. If someone was like, “The Long Goodbye,” you'd be like, “Oh, shut up, asshole.”

Well, that's someone who hasn't seen his movies. What do you think soon-to-be fans of this series would be surprised to learn about the actual making of the show?

BARUCHEL: Oh, I would assume… I don't know, that it was like a pretty joyous, lovely, light, airy working space. It was like summertime in Toronto, everybody was kind of, for the most part, in a good mood. It was lovely out. All the bells and whistles when it came to craft service and stuff, and, yeah, and then we were doing something cool! Lots of fighting and car crashes, and guns and stuff, and explosions, and it was a blast. It was like going to an amusement park every day.

LUNA: Schnitzel Fridays, big, big thing with Arnold whenever he works. They just brought in a cutting board, a mountain of Schnitzel and lemon wedges, and you wouldn’t know that, but that's what fueled us on Fridays.

Jay Baruchel and Monica Barbaro as Luke and Emma in FUBAR
Image via Netflix

By the way, it's so funny, I've been lucky enough to do a number of set visits and it's amazing, you can see the energy on set when the craft service is another level. Everyone's just in a great mood.

BARUCHEL: Correct, correct, it makes a big difference [laughs].

LUNA: That’s true.

100%. So, the season is eight episodes; for each of you, which is your favorite episode and why?

BARUCHEL: I think, to be honest, this is gonna sound like a cop out, but the earnest answer is, the opener and the closer are both– there are no skippables here, there's no track you'd skip over. They're all strong, they're all A-sides. But that first one is as strong a pilot as I've ever seen of any show, and our finale is like, oh man, spectacular. So personally, I love those two.

LUNA: I'm in agreement, I think that's a good answer. Also, the first is special to me because you get to see Boro kind of in his element, and also with his most honest feelings towards Arnold's character. And you get to see that, obviously, flip by the end of the episode. So I love the pilot, and the card game, the card game was really fun. I didn't have a lot to do in that scene, but there's a really great interaction with the CIA team during that episode. A lot of truth is spoken, and it's really funny. I enjoy that one.

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Image via HBO

As a huge fan of The Last of Us, I definitely have to ask you, when you were making it, did you realize how special it was gonna be?

LUNA: We had some of the best craftsmen in every department, like John Paino, our production designer. You literally just go on the set and realize that. Having already been immersed in the game, just to be able to be there and feel the textures, you know? These game designers are spending hours and hours and hours building these textures, and now you have them and everything is tangible. And so, I had the sense that we were making it at the highest level we possibly could in every department; whether or not the audience was going to react the way they did, there was no way of telling. But I mean, it was literally week to week, by the millions they were coming to the show, and that was just a tribute to friends telling friends, and most of them were non-gamers. So, I guess long answer long, there's no way of knowing, but we were all overwhelmed by how positive people were.

I noticed on Collider the first few weeks it was a certain level, but by the end, it was a whole other beast with people wanting to read content and read articles.

LUNA: Well, I appreciate your work, Steve. I always have, man. It's always great talking to you, and I love you all over there at Collider, so appreciate it.

On that note, Jay, good luck to whatever team you're rooting for in the NHL.

BARUCHEL: Yeah, you know, when my team is done I'm done. So, they can all go shit in the sea as far as I'm concerned.

LUNA: I mean, the Flames almost made the playoffs there at the end, and once they were out, I'm out.

BARUCHEL: There you go, attaboy!

FUBAR premieres on Netflix on May 25.