Edward Furlong Recounts the Heartbreaking Night He Lost ‘Terminator 3’

I’ve been an Edward Furlong fan for most of my life, which makes this one particularly difficult to hear.

For probably 15 years, I’ve known a story about how Furlong lost Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. It was one of those stories passed around behind closed doors in the industry, and I never really knew how much of it was true. Now I’ve heard Furlong tell the story himself, and unfortunately, most of what I was told was accurate.

Furlong was set to return as John Connor, the role he originated opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. He tells Love-It Film he’d signed his first multimillion-dollar contract, which included a very specific condition because of his reputation for partying: no drugs.

“My first multi-million-dollar contract was with Terminator 3. There was a clause, because I was already known to be a partier: no drugs. Test me. If there’s any drugs, I’m off.”

Furlong knew he needed to get clean, but decided he wanted one final night of partying first.

“I call my buddy at the time. I’m like, ‘Listen, man, I gotta clean up. You’re doing this movie now. This is gonna be my last night, so let’s fucking party hard.’”

At the club, Furlong says he was drunk when he poured out some cocaine in the bathroom and realized he’d poured too much.

“I don’t want to waste it. I snorted it. I just remember, like, walking out and then all of a sudden being on the floor and, like, the lights in the club were on.”

“Let’s just say that I lost Terminator that day.”

That’s almost exactly the story I was told all those years ago, with one significant difference.

The version told to me was that the gathering at the club was connected to the production celebrating the movie moving forward, and that Furlong woke up in the hospital to learn he’d been fired. I can’t independently verify those details, and Furlong doesn’t include them in his account, so take them for what they are: an industry story that made its way to me roughly 15 years ago.