Arnold Schwarzenegger says he was told he wouldn't make it as an actor because he was too muscly compared to Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, and Al Pacino

• Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was told that wouldn't make it as an actor because of his muscles.
• He said he was compared to stars like Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, and Al Pacino in the 1970s.

It's hard to imagine a world in which Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't one of the biggest movie stars of the 1980s — the decade he had roles in "Conan The Barbarian," "The Terminator," "Commando," and "Predator."

But the actor said studio executives weren't impressed by him when he first tried to make it as an actor in the 1970s.

"In the '70s when I said I wanted to get into movies, all the producers and directors and studio executives and agents were saying to me, 'It's never gonna happen.' And one of the three reasons was that my body was too big," Schwarzenegger said on the "Literally! With Rob Lowe" podcast on Thursday.

The 76-year-old actor said movie executives at the time compared him to other successful actors of the era.

"They said to me, 'Look at the stars today. Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, De Niro, Woody Allen. Those are the sex symbols. People don't want to see big muscles. You're 100 pounds too heavy. Forget it,'" he recalled.

According to Schwarzenegger, movie producers and executives also criticized his accent.

"The bottom line is that when they said, 'It's not gonna work, you getting in the movies, and especially not being a leading man,'" he said. "They said it was 'because of your accent.' They said the German accent is scary for most Americans — it reminds them of the Nazis. 'Yes, you could play a Nazi officer or something like that.'"

"And then they said that, 'No one would be able to pronounce Schwarz... And what's your name? Schnitzel?' So they were laughing at my name. And they said that they're three reasons why it wouldn't work," he continued.