Sylvester Stallone Once Shared the Character Who’s Most Like Him Isn’t Rocky
Sylvester Stallone is synonymous with his breakthrough role Rocky Balboa. But despite the character being perhaps his most recognizable performance, Stallone doesn’t share too much in common with him.
Sylvester Stallone once revealed the character that he’s most like
It might be difficult to imagine someone else in the role of Rocky Balboa. The actor is very close to the role, as he wrote the character for him to play. But although Stallone was set on portraying Rocky, he and the famous boxer had little in common.
“I, Sylvester Stallone, am really not much like Rocky. Rocky is a much more ethical, moral person than I am. He’s really a great guy,” Stallone once told The Aquarian.
Similarly, he also wasn’t too much like his other iconic character John Rambo.
“And Rambo is a much darker person than I am, and much more reserved and withdrawn,” he said.
Stallone confided that he took a different approach in the feature Bullet to the Head. There, the actor portrayed a hit man going up against Jason Momoa’s big bad. Stallone played the role as if he was really a hit man.
“I thought, ‘Let me try something different. What if I, Sylvester Stallone, were transported into the world of hit men?’ In other words, what if I were the hit man but just played myself? So that’s the way I approached this character,” Stallone said.
So Stallone got into his character by he asking himself how he’d react in his character’s circumstances.
“I wanted to be as casual and comfortable with the character as possible. I said, ‘If Sylvester Stallone were a hit man, this is how he would be.’ So, pretty much what you see up there is Sylvester Stallone as a hit man. Rather than trying to create a character that was different from me, I tried to make the character the same as me, and just add the story,” he said.
Sylvester Stallone didn’t expect to play Rocky again after ‘Rocky Balboa’
Stallone’s Rocky franchise has had its fair share of ups and downs. He considered Rocky V to be a disappointment, not just to himself, but to fans as well. But Stallone believed he redeemed the franchise with Rocky Balboa. The sixth feature saw an aging Rocky coming out of retirement to challenge a much younger competitor. It was a film that Stallone was particularly proud of.
“I felt obligated to try and end the series the way it should have ended. I was very negligent Rocky V. It just didn’t leave anyone with any sense of hope. It was very reflective of where I was at the time,” Stallone once told Entertainment Weekly.
But Stallone would soon return to the franchise thanks to Ryan Coogler’s and Michael B. Jordan’s Creed. The feature was a continuation of the franchise focusing on a new generation of fighters, with Stallone reprising his iconic role.
Stallone’s comeback to Rocky was a surprise even to him. He once thought Rocky Balboa was an appropriate conclusion to the character’s arc.
“This is probably my last rodeo, because what I thought happened — and has happened — I never expected,” Stallone once said according to Entertainment Weekly. “I thought Rocky was over in 2006 [the release of Rocky Balboa], and I was very happy with that. And then all of a sudden this young man presented himself and the whole story changed. It went on to a new generation, new problems, new adventures. And I couldn’t be happier, because as I step back, because my story has been told, there’s a whole new world that is going to be opening up for the audience, for this generation.”
He also asserted that Creed 2 might be his last appearance as Rocky. After the sequel, he’d pass the franchise off to a younger team.
