Speaker 1: For six consecutive decades, Sylvester Stallone has started in number
Speaker 1: one box office hits. He's not only been Rambo and Rocky,
Speaker 1: but also a scriptwriter, a producer, and now he's also
Speaker 1: a painter. I sat down with him at the Library
Speaker 1: of Congress recently to talk about his extraordinary multi decade
Speaker 1: career as a leading person in Hollywood. I'm in the
Speaker 1: Library of Congress today with Sylvester Stallone and Sylvester s Alone.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for giving us this time my pleasure.
Speaker 1: David Now, the Library of Congress in two thousand and
Speaker 1: six said that Rocky was a national treasure and put
Speaker 1: it in our National Cultural Heritage list of films. Was
Speaker 1: not a surprise to you that of all the films
Speaker 1: this is one of the most important films ever made. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a stunny revelation, because you know, when you
Speaker 1: start out, I have my attentions were to do like
Speaker 1: a little footage of what I did last summer kind
Speaker 1: of film. I never thought it would ever get to
Speaker 1: this magnitude. So yeah, So in that movie you um
Speaker 1: conceived of Rocky and that you played Rocky. Was it
Speaker 1: hard to get that movie sold to people? Very hard?
Speaker 1: Because and I understand it, I was basically a classical nobody,
Speaker 1: and at that time there were a few men in
Speaker 1: Hollywood that actually considered himself rather Micheesmo, and they could
Speaker 1: have filled the role in a sense. But I just
Speaker 1: knew this was the crossroad moment and if I didn't
Speaker 1: hang on, if I didn't go all in and the
Speaker 1: film was a success, I would have never forgiven myself
Speaker 1: a rest of my life. So so the idea for Rocky,
Speaker 1: where did you come up with that idea? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a big misconception about that. Everyone thinks is oh,
Speaker 1: I was watching Chuck Webner fight Mohammed Ali knocked him down.
Speaker 1: That was the fabricated type story. Rocky Marciano, who was
Speaker 1: basically my size, had a computer fight with Muhammad Ali
Speaker 1: when he was suspended in the the vent and the light
Speaker 1: bulb went off. I said, this is kind of interesting,
Speaker 1: and that would But then again, no one in Hollywood
Speaker 1: knew who Rocky Marcia. It was so in nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: the truck what it was more contemporary, So I used
Speaker 1: that at the reference of the I guess the bay
Speaker 1: Oone Bleader or the neighborhood loser going to distance with
Speaker 1: the champions. So does it surprise you, disappoint you, or
Speaker 1: make you feel good that people actually think Rocky is
Speaker 1: your life story and that you actually a boxer in life.
Speaker 1: Be fuddles really does, because people think you really were
Speaker 1: a boxer and this was your life story. I know,
Speaker 1: I know they actually thought, oh, they found some fellow
Speaker 1: who actually was a pug at one time, but and
Speaker 1: that was that was actually Probably to this day a
Speaker 1: lot of people think that I'm a little short on
Speaker 1: the gray matter and number of Rocky esque character reality.
Speaker 1: So to go back, you grew up Where were you born?
Speaker 1: I was born in Hell's Kitchen, New York, and then
Speaker 1: you grew up to some extent in Silver Spring, Marya.
Speaker 1: The grandparents lived in Washington, d C. Then they sort
Speaker 1: of migrated to Bethezida, then Silver Springs. Okay, and your parents,
Speaker 1: what did your parents do? Well? My father was kind
Speaker 1: of a real tough guy, but he focused on hair.
Speaker 1: The FAA Stones and the family were very into cosmetology,
Speaker 1: and my mother was too, and then she was the
Speaker 1: first one to open up a woman's gym in New
Speaker 1: York called, i mean Washington called Barbella's, which I thought,
Speaker 1: great name for her daughter, Barbella. So were you a
Speaker 1: great athlete when you were young and strong? And I
Speaker 1: was completely manufactured. I wasn't a physical specimen at all.
Speaker 1: I just had an epiphany when I went to see
Speaker 1: Steve Reeves and Hercules and Hercules unchained. My head exploded.
Speaker 1: I finally found that's the role model. So when you
Speaker 1: told your parents what you want to do is be
Speaker 1: an actor, that they say, get a real job or
Speaker 1: something like that, Well that's the line in Rocky because
Speaker 1: you know you weren't boring much of a brase, they
Speaker 1: better start using your body. Uh. They didn't put much
Speaker 1: uh faith in that that particular occupational choice. So I
Speaker 1: just said, look, it's one of those things where they said,
Speaker 1: we'll have something to fall back on. I go, what,
Speaker 1: literally what? I I'm not good at anything other than
Speaker 1: day dreaming and imagining. I'm not pragmatic at all. I'm
Speaker 1: totally abstract. And they took me to I don't know
Speaker 1: if I ever totally wanted at sixteen, and after being
Speaker 1: expelled from eleven schools at sixteen, they took me to
Speaker 1: the Drexel Institute of Technology, and they ran am a
Speaker 1: battery of tests and any conclusion, and I still have it.
Speaker 1: They said, Sylvester seems to be deficient and this in deficient,
Speaker 1: and that we recommend him to be an electricians assistant
Speaker 1: or a tabsorder, whatever that is. And I keep that
Speaker 1: as a reminder. So you wrote the script called Rocky,
Speaker 1: but before that you were an actor? Is that right?
Speaker 1: But not exactly? A very successfuack? I mean, so how
Speaker 1: did you support yourself in those early days? Well, I
Speaker 1: cleaned lions cages. I cut fish heads. That was really good,
Speaker 1: with sturgeon in the Delhi. I was kind of a
Speaker 1: night watchman in this building. I just did a multitude
Speaker 1: of things, delivery boy, you name it. But primarily I
Speaker 1: did those things. And after four years of college that
Speaker 1: I took these jobs so I would have my days
Speaker 1: free so I could quote make the rounds. But you
Speaker 1: were making the rounds as an actor, but people weren't saying,
Speaker 1: we really want you so much. But you were writing
Speaker 1: at night or what were you doing? What happened? I said,
Speaker 1: my god, I'm not gonna make it this this is now.
Speaker 1: I'm starting to get like around twenty six, so I
Speaker 1: got a job as an usher, and people said, why
Speaker 1: it's thirty nine dollars a week. Who could turn that down?
Speaker 1: But more important, I could watch films all day long,
Speaker 1: and I started to dissect him. At night. It had
Speaker 1: a little one room thing and Sutton Niece, a little
Speaker 1: kind of a transient hotel, and I would take a
Speaker 1: little inexpensive tape recorder, record the soundtrack and the dialogue
Speaker 1: and go home and try to replace the dialogue. No,
Speaker 1: it's like a game. And after a while I started
Speaker 1: picking up a little tempo and a little rhythm. And
Speaker 1: the first five screenplays everywhere pretty horrendous. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like what I did last summer, type screenplays. Until finally
Speaker 1: I came to the New York Library and I went
Speaker 1: down in the basement and they showed me parchments, writings
Speaker 1: of Emberson, Dickinson, Dickenson, but egg around Poe. And that's
Speaker 1: when the light went off and went po. Talk about
Speaker 1: a misunderstood artist way ahead of his time, the literary
Speaker 1: van go, And that's what triggered. That's what changed everything.
Speaker 1: And how long it take to actually right rocky thing
Speaker 1: the days, that's all. This is not a finished product,
Speaker 1: but as you know, you're right it, but you had
Speaker 1: the format. You had had a right long so a
Speaker 1: producer or Mr Winkler. Right. So you give them the
Speaker 1: scripts and they say, yes, we'll buy it, provided that
Speaker 1: you are the writer not the actor. Totally absolutely, and
Speaker 1: you said no. I say, guys, it's not for sale.
Speaker 1: It's just not for sale. And at that time I
Speaker 1: was broke. When I say broke, I mean broke. So
Speaker 1: finally they said, okay, but I heard that they gave
Speaker 1: you like a fifteen day trial period. They did, they did.
Speaker 1: They had all kinds of morality closes. Basically, if you
Speaker 1: like spin on the ground, we can replace you. And
Speaker 1: the first thing we did was me shaking down the
Speaker 1: fellow along the docks. You know, you know, come on,
Speaker 1: give me a cookie and cold the long shot money.
Speaker 1: You know, if you want to dance, you gotta pay
Speaker 1: the band kind of a thing. And something happened. They saw, Wow,
Speaker 1: this actually might work. So when the Academy Award nominations
Speaker 1: come out, you get ten Academy Award nominations. You're nominated
Speaker 1: for Best Scriptwriter and Best Actor. And it only happened
Speaker 1: twice before Orson Welles and Charlie Chapman, who and also
Speaker 1: the you know, the movie is nominated for Best Picture.
Speaker 1: So were you all of a sudden amazed and astounded?
Speaker 1: And what did all of a sudden your high school
Speaker 1: friends call you up and say, I really knew you
Speaker 1: were great? Can you give me a job? Everyone, all
Speaker 1: the backs levelers were there, and yeah, it was mystifying.
Speaker 1: And also it was it emboldened me in a negative
Speaker 1: way too, because I said, I told you you know
Speaker 1: what said of that kind of thing, see, and I
Speaker 1: think I swung the peddle and way too far to
Speaker 1: the obnoxious. Do you expect to win the account? Not
Speaker 1: at all, because actually every film back then was kind
Speaker 1: of a statement film. I mean all the President's Men,
Speaker 1: Network and Going and Bound for Glory, and then there's Rocky,
Speaker 1: which is no statement really, it's just about a man
Speaker 1: wanting to have a little bit of respect and love.
Speaker 1: So you get the Academy Award Picture, and then there's
Speaker 1: your Your life changes all of a sudden, you're famous
Speaker 1: and you're extremely wealthy. You made a lot of money
Speaker 1: because you were the owner of all of the film. No,
Speaker 1: I I don't know a percentage, there was some I
Speaker 1: think it'll devious. Behind the scenes macinations there where. When
Speaker 1: you're naive, you you're going to get burnt. So I
Speaker 1: have no ownership. And George Lucas owned Star Wars everything.
Speaker 1: He's smart man, and you own nothing. Brian, I'm an employee. Okay,
Speaker 1: but you did, Okay, I did. So most actors are
Speaker 1: thrilled if they have one um part like Rocky in
Speaker 1: their whole career. You had another one Rambo. Now Rambo
Speaker 1: was not something you created, is that right? No, Rambo
Speaker 1: was a novel by David Morrell and eleven. I was
Speaker 1: the eleventh choice everyone, and it was like, I don't
Speaker 1: know who was next after me because they gone through
Speaker 1: every one and the past, past, past, past, including three
Speaker 1: different directors. So this had become sort of a a
Speaker 1: pariah of sorts. The first time when you go in there,
Speaker 1: Rambo was in the original screenp It was horrible. He
Speaker 1: was a psychopath. He killed children, he killed Fisherman, this
Speaker 1: and that. So I said, if I'm going to get
Speaker 1: involved with this, I see the character going on beyond
Speaker 1: this and this is what do you want to do?
Speaker 1: I said, I want to rewrite the screenplay and I
Speaker 1: want him to go right to the edge of violence,
Speaker 1: right to the point where he's being pushed, but he
Speaker 1: pulls back because, similar to James Dean and East Dividen,
Speaker 1: he wanted to be accepted back into the family of man.
Speaker 1: So if Rambo got in a fight with Rocky, who
Speaker 1: would win? Rambo not even a fight unless it's in
Speaker 1: the ring. First of all, Rambo is a killer for real.
Speaker 1: He's almost a psychopath when he when it's which flips Rocky,
Speaker 1: it's a guy you know, he has mercy. The other
Speaker 1: one has no mercy. So when you do these movies,
Speaker 1: let's say Rocky, you actually are performing in the fighting
Speaker 1: scenes and and isn't that hard because you're not a
Speaker 1: professional boxer, So how did you actually learn how to
Speaker 1: do that and not get hurt? David? The hard part
Speaker 1: is the choreography. It's trial and error because it's one
Speaker 1: thing they just film a regular fight, but to create
Speaker 1: dramatic beats in looks and whatever, it takes hours, months
Speaker 1: of trial and error. So it ends up being written
Speaker 1: down like notes left right, switch moved the head fate
Speaker 1: And I thought, if I don't do this myself, it's
Speaker 1: never going to be done right. But in the end,
Speaker 1: when you're boxing in the movie, Rocky and the Rocky movies.
Speaker 1: Somebody is hitting you all the time, And did anybody
Speaker 1: really hurt you a lot? Oh? Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: have a a lot of photos. Will you actually see distortion?
Speaker 1: How many times have you been injured in doing movies?
Speaker 1: Do you had like seventies some stunt injuries? Oh? I'd
Speaker 1: probably say more than they wanted in the world I've had.
Speaker 1: Why do your own stunts? Why don't you get a
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's just something. It's like the
Speaker 1: Call of the Wild Jack London novel. I just get
Speaker 1: up there and I can do this. See, there's a
Speaker 1: difference between stunts and when you hook yourself up to
Speaker 1: for example, you're jumped me from train to train to
Speaker 1: train and this and that, and that's just a certain
Speaker 1: kind of actor doing those sorts of James bonding and stunts.
Speaker 1: Then there's a time that you become very very physical
Speaker 1: and you engage with other people and you do it
Speaker 1: yourself completely, no doubles. That's going to lead to a
Speaker 1: lot of injuries. And so I chose more of the
Speaker 1: confrontational kind of stunts. Um, you know, jumping off a waterfall,
Speaker 1: fire stunts. I mean of course, I would have some
Speaker 1: very good doubles, like at the time, like Mark Allisan
Speaker 1: during Diamonds farms Worth, But the majority of them you're
Speaker 1: doing yourself and they come with a lot of injuries.
Speaker 1: So you have a successful Rocky series and you have
Speaker 1: a successful Rambo series. But after all these successes, at
Speaker 1: some point people say to you, well, maybe you're too
Speaker 1: old to play these parts, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: your agent says, maybe we can't help you as much,
Speaker 1: and you're seen as a washed up actor by some
Speaker 1: How did that feel after you're at the top of
Speaker 1: the mountain, all of a sudden, all the people tell
Speaker 1: you how great you were, Now they're telling you they
Speaker 1: can't help you. Was that a real disappointment? It was?
Speaker 1: Then again, it's that fourth cross road. Okay, do I
Speaker 1: listen to them or how do you feel? How do
Speaker 1: you do you feel? Still competitive? Is there? As Rocky
Speaker 1: would say, stuff in the basement, Yeah, but I just
Speaker 1: have to do an age appropriate. That's when I came
Speaker 1: up with the expendables. Well, you can't do it alone,
Speaker 1: but I'll take together. I'll take a group of actors
Speaker 1: that are not doing so well, and you put it
Speaker 1: all together. And I got the idea when I took
Speaker 1: my wife to a rock and roll revival. You have
Speaker 1: like twenty groups, and each one was worse the next,
Speaker 1: but together it was an interesting ticket, like, oh, look
Speaker 1: at this, and I thought, why don't I do the same.
Speaker 1: I take all these guys who perhaps on their own
Speaker 1: were struggling, including myself, put him together and that I
Speaker 1: want to see how this turns out. This is kind
Speaker 1: of interesting. Okay, So you have the success of the
Speaker 1: Rocky movies, and then you have a sequel, the Creed movies.
Speaker 1: Right and by the way, on Creed, there's another Creed
Speaker 1: movie coming out, I believe. So, yes, well you would know.
Speaker 1: And but I'm told that you're not gonna reprise your
Speaker 1: role as Rocky. It's Rocky ever gonna reappear on the screen.
Speaker 1: Uh boy, you're really mm hmm. There is a possibility.
Speaker 1: I've written half a screenplay because this is a story
Speaker 1: where obviously his days in the ring or long gone,
Speaker 1: where he now tries to save his neighborhood or he
Speaker 1: thinks he can, because that area right now in Philadelphia
Speaker 1: is just literally fentinal. It's terrible, and he involves himself
Speaker 1: and he realized you can't save the neighborhood. You're you know,
Speaker 1: Rocky in the simple mind, so you start to get
Speaker 1: He starts to focus on a couple of these characters,
Speaker 1: and it becomes like the New Adrian but with all
Speaker 1: the problems of today. And then there's a fellow that
Speaker 1: comes in from Mexico, and the Rocky takes him in
Speaker 1: under his wing, and before you know it, it's the
Speaker 1: Rocky and Adrian and he's sort of the mentoring this,
Speaker 1: this horrible existence until it becomes tolerable. So what's more pleasurable? Writing? Acting, producing, directing?
Speaker 1: Which of those do you like the most? Directing is fantastic,
Speaker 1: but you lose your life. It's seven days a week.
Speaker 1: You wake up in the middle of the night jotting notes.
Speaker 1: Writing is a complete horror, complete horror. Have you ever
Speaker 1: seen a truly well, I mean, fresh faced writer like
Speaker 1: Edgar Allen Powell? Yeah, exactly My point. Just Haggard gone
Speaker 1: dead at thirty nine, right is rough and I have
Speaker 1: tremendous It's almost like being a composer. Every word, as
Speaker 1: you know, is a note. It's not just typing. Anyone
Speaker 1: can type, anyone can talk into the recorder, but they
Speaker 1: actually get the fluidity and the essence of dialogue. It's beautiful,
Speaker 1: but it's hard. So if you were starting today in
Speaker 1: Hollywood and you're giving advice to a young actor, writer, producer,
Speaker 1: what would you say. Would you say forget motion picture
Speaker 1: theaters and just go into streaming or what that would
Speaker 1: pretty much say that, Yeah, I think if you could
Speaker 1: do a couple of indies to learn your chops of sorts.
Speaker 1: But the day of the kind of entrepreneurial of grabbing
Speaker 1: life by the seat of the parents, going when your
Speaker 1: gut instinct is over. For example, that when Rocky Rockey
Speaker 1: would never be made today, this this never would have happened.
Speaker 1: It's over. The majority of The Godfather wouldn't be made today.
Speaker 1: So today you think the motion picture business is changing,
Speaker 1: such a streaming is taking over, and you think the
Speaker 1: motion picture industry as you knew it it will thrive. Well,
Speaker 1: I I don't think it's going to ever have the
Speaker 1: golden era that has had by far, because the the audience,
Speaker 1: the demographic is different. They're now watching films on an iPhone.
Speaker 1: So it's not as though the theater has become this
Speaker 1: habitual shrine to what to come in attractions and streaming.
Speaker 1: This is where you actually, I'm gonna do one very
Speaker 1: very soon called The Tulsa King or The King of Tulsa.
Speaker 1: And it just allows you to breathe the character, to
Speaker 1: breathe out to take ten weeks, which is beautiful. Is
Speaker 1: that film? You have maybe nine minutes a hundred and
Speaker 1: ten minutes and it's all a crap shoot in no words.
Speaker 1: With films, you have a dreams mind film three million dollars,
Speaker 1: you have one opening weekend. So when you do that
Speaker 1: particular picture, Um, are you writing any of it? Are
Speaker 1: you just acting in it? This one is being written
Speaker 1: by Taylor Sheridan and of course, uh, Terry Terrence Winter
Speaker 1: and I am kind of like the you know them,
Speaker 1: the higher Gun. But you do, you do put your input.
Speaker 1: You try to, as you say, it's a lot easier
Speaker 1: to remember your own dialogue than someone else's, so you
Speaker 1: try to construct the sentence so it's easier to reach. So, um,
Speaker 1: do you have three daughters. With those three daughters, would
Speaker 1: you recommend they go into the motion picture business? Uh,
Speaker 1: if they're hyphen it's if they're gonna go in just
Speaker 1: solely as Oh I am an actress. Rough rough the
Speaker 1: day of the thirty year career, I think along gone,
Speaker 1: I've been really fortunate, and I have something happened that
Speaker 1: I think the mag which I'm very proud of. I'm
Speaker 1: the only person I've ever had a number one film
Speaker 1: with six different decades, which is remarkable. So as you
Speaker 1: look back on your career, what would you say you're
Speaker 1: most proud of. I was most proud of Rocky Balboa
Speaker 1: the sixth one, because that was done with such skepticism.
Speaker 1: And I was at my career low because it's all
Speaker 1: peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys in any career, any sport, anything,
Speaker 1: and I was in some serious valley of the unknown,
Speaker 1: and I came up this idea at years old to
Speaker 1: play Rocky a box there and this and that, and
Speaker 1: they said, this is absurd. So if Rocky had not
Speaker 1: worked and it had been a flop, the first one,
Speaker 1: the first one, I've been a flop, And uh, what
Speaker 1: would you have done with your career? Where do you
Speaker 1: think you would have wound up? I've already something in
Speaker 1: the question in the world. Yeah, because you're very interested
Speaker 1: in horses, Yeah, I'm very I'm very I'm very good
Speaker 1: on horses. Isn't that kind of dangerous? It's very dangerous,
Speaker 1: but it's something I grew up with. Any regrets in
Speaker 1: your career, Yeah, there's tons of regrets. There's always regrets,
Speaker 1: and it's frustrating because obviously you can't do anything about it.
Speaker 1: But there's certain roles you turned down. The politics weren't right,
Speaker 1: and we get perhaps not being as adamant about surrounding
Speaker 1: yourself with like minded people. And because you know, you're
Speaker 1: dealing with very, very fragile egos and everyone is usually
Speaker 1: running on a lot of fear. That's the fuel. And
Speaker 1: you've got to like really trust your own instincts because
Speaker 1: other people are looking out for there. They're part of it.
Speaker 1: The directors looking out for his image, the writers looking
Speaker 1: guarding the words, the actors look at hey do I
Speaker 1: have more lines than that gouy next to me. It's
Speaker 1: everyone has a for motive for what they do. So
Speaker 1: do you have a bucket lists? Anything you haven't done
Speaker 1: that you really want to do? I was thinking about
Speaker 1: the nutcracker sweet, but my ankles are not is what
Speaker 1: they were, So that's not happening. So today when you
Speaker 1: go to a restaurant or you go out anywhere. Did
Speaker 1: people come up to you all the time for pictures
Speaker 1: autographs and people come up and say, I want to
Speaker 1: arm wrestle you or something like that. They do all
Speaker 1: the time, all the time, and usually with an arm
Speaker 1: wrestler I go, having done in film about it. You
Speaker 1: don't know who's the killer in the room. Some fellow
Speaker 1: will come with you with pipe stem arms and he's
Speaker 1: a savant and arm wrestling, so you never know. You
Speaker 1: and I were having dinner not too long ago, and
Speaker 1: a little boy came up, that's right, and he uh,
Speaker 1: he wanted to arm wrestle you, and uh, your arm
Speaker 1: wrestling man, You'll let him win, of course, because what
Speaker 1: if he did win? This way, at least I can
Speaker 1: fake it. Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews.
Speaker 1: You can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen in s