Sylvester Stallone boasts of being the person in the world who has fired the most blank bullets. A pyrotechnics display that has given him a scare more than once. The latest incident occurred during the filming of The Expendables, when a blank gun accidentally exploded. The curious thing is that the actor who has killed 794 guys on screen and places Donald Trump on the same level as George Washington turns out to be a staunch supporter of gun control in the United States.
The interview is via video conference. Stallone appears dressed in a suit against an artificial background that looks like a video game from the 90s to grant the only interview he will give to a European media outlet. Processing it has taken over a year. The first attempt was made when the actor starred in The Stallone Family, a program in which he surprisingly delved into the world of reality shows like I Am Georgina revealing intimate details of his surroundings. He canceled the interview at the last minute. Now he has agreed to speak to promote the third season of Tulsa King, the SkyShowtime series in which he plays Dwight General Manfredi, a veteran gangster who builds a criminal empire in Oklahoma.
Tulsa King represents several novelties in his career. One is a role with a lot of humor, and another is that, finally, the star plays someone close to his biological age: 79 years old. "As much as I love Rocky, I know I can't do it anymore," he says pointing at himself. "When I stopped boxing, half of his story ended and as for Rambo, no one would believe me if I played him. But I am the perfect age to play Manfredi and I have never felt so comfortable acting."
So much so that Stallone's character in one of the early episodes of the series admits to a lover being in shock when he reveals his age after having sex with her.
-Is playing an Italian-American mobster in Tulsa King your revenge for being rejected as an extra in The Godfather when you were young?
-They needed 300 extras for the initial wedding sequence and they didn't accept me because they said I didn't look Italian. Me? I couldn't look more Italian! I'm more Italian than pizza. Do I look Swedish to you?
-Did you reproach Coppola when he succeeded?
Manfredi in Tulsa King could be Stallone's definitive farewell, the actor whose filmography of 50 films has grossed 3 billion dollars. Someone who in each of the last five decades can boast of having at least one number 1 at the box office (most recently as the voice of King Shark in The Suicide Squad). At the end of the previous season, he had already hinted at retirement, at least as an actor.
"I was exhausted, and at the end, I thought, 'That's it, we've reached the end,'" he says. "I didn't see myself capable of doing better and surprising the audience again, I feared that continuing would be a mistake. Until I thought if I was crazy... Sometimes in life, you only have one chance to enjoy such success, and for this to happen at my age, it's not luck, it's a miracle."
According to Hollywood Reporter, Stallone has a reputation for being hands-on in the projects he participates in, especially in the writing. It is worth noting that in 1977, he won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Rocky. He does not deny that he tweaks lines of his dialogues in the series: "I always need to be involved, even behind the scenes. Teaching other actors, observing the mechanics of a shoot, following the writing process... If there's one thing I've learned, it's that today's actors starting out not only need to learn to act, they need to learn to be filmmakers."
Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone turned out to be a miracle that happened in 1946 in New York. A miracle because his chances of survival when his mother gave birth were very slim. Faced with complications during childbirth, the doctor used forceps with very little skill, accidentally cutting a nerve in the newborn's face. This first slap of life left the future Sylvester Stallone with facial paralysis that over time has shaped his acting identity: a crooked smile and a way of speaking where he drags his words.
His early days in the film industry were very tough. He survived with mediocre roles and even had some experience in softcore porn to pay the bills. That's why he started writing. When he offered the industry his script for Rocky, he had $136 in his account, a threat of eviction from his landlord, and his dog had gone to live with a friend because he couldn't afford to feed him.
In that distressing situation, it was clear that Stallone was more than just a young actor trying to make it. He showed great personality when, given his situation, he turned down an offer of $350,000 for the script. Hollywood wanted his script, but they didn't want him on screen. He was adamant: Rocky Balboa could only be Sylvester Stallone.
The movie was shot in just 28 days with a tiny budget, without paying for location permits, and with street bystanders as extras. Its success was stratospheric, with a dozen Oscar nominations, two for Stallone. It marked the beginning of an unstoppable franchise of six films and a bunch of spin-offs that still resonate. However, in reality, Stallone does not have control over Rocky.
This was made public by the actor on Instagram when in 2022 he sent a message of frustration to his fans. Stallone demanded a sweet farewell for his most beloved character. This was in response to a movie about Ivan Drago, the legendary Soviet antagonist of Rocky played by Dolph Lundgren, which had been announced without his approval. "Give me back my rights, bloodsuckers," he wrote on social media referring to the producers.
--I think he would be somewhat disappointed with the world. Although he's a tough guy, he doesn't like conflict. These times are dramatic, not happy. So he wouldn't fit in too well.
Although Stallone's acting reputation has always been the subject of memes, his triumph with Rocky foreshadowed a much more prestigious career beyond the muscular Planet Hollywood blockbusters that solidified in the 80s. It is worth remembering that Roger Ebert, the most influential film critic in the US for decades, even cataloged the sad-faced Stallone boxer as a possible "new Marlon Brando". There is no doubt that Ebert missed the mark - considering Brando also made many flops - if we consider that Stallone has been nominated 10 times for the Razzie Awards, the anti-Oscars that recognize the worst in the industry each year.
No one can deny, not even himself, that in his filmography there are fabulous turkeys. Critics and audiences have not yet recovered from the impact of seeing him in comedy versions in, for example, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992) or in Judge Dredd (1995), a movie where the best thing that can be said about Stallone is that he was wearing a helmet. But it is also true that his remarkable dramatic talent has never been recognized as it deserves: from his deaf cop in Cop Land (1997) to his Rocky Balboa characters battered by life. Stallone was undoubtedly much more gifted as an actor than his action movie rivals Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Steven Seagal.
The funny thing about Stallone's career is not what he has done, but what he has not done. If he had had a different agent, he might have changed the history of cinema, we do not know if for the better. He is known for his bad luck in rejecting leading roles in movies like Basic Instinct, Superman, 48 Hrs, Beverly Hills Cop, Die Hard, and... yes, this is very strong, Pretty Woman.
After a difficult entry into the century, with the tragic death of a son, Stallone returned to his most prolific genre with an uneven saga that he wrote and directed himself and that reconciled him with the box office. He skillfully used the nostalgia play in The Expendables incorporating other old genre glories to revive the point-blank shooting and bloody knuckles cinema.
So even an arthritic Stallone is still a lot of Stallone. Pop culture and the sentimental memory of forty-somethings and beyond owe him a lot. Just a few examples:
His shout in Rocky calling for Adrian (Talia Shire) with a black eye and a voice tone close to a nasal congestion medication ad is the greatest declaration of love from the working class ever seen in history. We won't even mention the stair climbing scene with Eye of the Tiger playing because when you see that scene, anyone feels capable of passing the State Attorney exam or dating the high school beauty.
In a polarized sport like soccer, Stallone makes any fan cheer for his orthopedic save of an unfair penalty shot by the Nazis in Victory (1981). Stallone is so Stallone that he made my generation believe arm wrestling was a sport in Over the Top (1987).
His John Rambo always felt his legs - despite the popular imitation by Santiago Urrialde in the 90s - and left us with that character description reminiscent of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente: "A man trained to ignore pain, weather conditions, live off the land, and eat things that would make a goat vomit."
The tough guy cop Mario Cobretti, protagonist of Cobra, is the only person besides Italian Erasmus students visiting Madrid capable of wearing sunglasses at night. Not to forget his yuppie and intellectual cop (of course, he wore glasses) in Tango & Cash, a genre film unjustly forgotten.
Stallone is the Al Pacino of popcorn with steroids (he was caught in 2007 at customs with vials of growth hormones that were illegal at the destination) in a cinema that no longer exists. Someone who only thinks about the audience and cares little about critics. That's why he is asked about the temptation that has always existed to ideologize the great icons he has portrayed. The best example is Rambo, whom President Ronald Reagan defined as a supposed "Republican voter" and a symbol of neoconservative America.
"When that was said, I denied it," says Stallone. "And not just with Rambo. If you look at Rocky, he never talked about money or politics, he never wanted to include an opinion on that in his character. When he fought, other boxers talked about the millions they were making, five, ten... but numbers didn't matter to him. His strength was not in money, but in competing with heart."
Stallone makes it clear, no matter what he says or how he is considered, his characters are sacred. "I hate making movies with ideological content. Although it may seem like it, that is never my intention, believe me, because conveying these messages clouds the goal of what I think a movie should be: adventure and entertainment. I seek escapism, for people to sit in a seat and be carried away to a new world."
But Stallone is much more than his characters. His 'neutrality' has not prevented him from accepting the appointment as special ambassador to the "very problematic" Hollywood by President Trump. As if Hollywood were an embassy in Rabat, Madrid, or Ulaanbaatar, the position must be acknowledged to have a lot of testosterone: he shares it with other macho figures in cinema like Jon Voight and Mel Gibson. Of course, without firing any real shots. Just blanks.