Arnold Schwarzenegger is back

Actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger presents his book 'Total Recall' during a news conference during the book fair in Frankfurt, in this October 10, 2012 file photo. A year after leaving the California governor's office and becoming tabloid fodder for fathering a boy with his family's housekeeper and splitting with his wife, Maria Shriver, the 65-year old former bodybuilder will star in no less than three Hollywood movies over the next 12 months. [Photo/Agencies]

In "Ten" he plays an aging drug agent, and in "The Tomb" an older prison inmate.

"We all go through the same dramas, we look at the mirror and say, what happened? You once had muscles and slowly they are deteriorating," said Schwarzenegger at "The Last Stand" press event.

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"The great thing in the movie is that they we're not trying to play me as the 35-year-old action hero but the one who is about to retire, and all of a sudden there is this challenge where he really needs to get his act together."

The one-time muscle man compares his career metamorphosis to that of his friend Clint Eastwood, who transitioned from his Dirty Harry days to a wiser person who's not afraid to make fun of his slipping abilities in recent films like "Trouble with the Curve".

"That's called evolution," said Sylvester Stallone, who stars with Schwarzenegger as aging inmates in "The Tomb". "There are no more wooly mammoths. Things change, but the one thing you cannot replace is charisma. Certain people have it, and will have it until the day they die."

Schwarzenegger's infamy in fathering a son outside of his high-profile marriage to Shriver initially seemed to hurt his popular appeal. Within weeks of the disclosure, "The Governator," a comic book that would feature his likeness, was canceled.

Ultimately, though, moviegoers will be less interested in Schwarzenegger's political adventures and personal scandals than in what he puts on the screen, says Peter Sealey, founder of The Sausalito Group and a former Columbia Pictures president of marketing and distribution.

"The movie-going audience really don't care about things like infidelity, DUIs," added publicist Howard Bragman, vice-chairman of the firm called Reputation. "They overlook a lot. Ultimately, it remains, how are the movies? Is he credible? Is he going to be a joke?"