Sylvester Stallone reflects on 'Rocky': A journey from usher to iconic filmmaker
Los Angeles , Sep 16, 2023, IANS
Actor Sylvester Stallone, during the screening of his classic 1976 film ‘Rocky’ at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival), said that while writing and making the film, he just wrote what he knew and acted it out. The actor, who was a very small actor back then, had written the script himself which he maintains, is his best till date.
Stallone, was an usher during his early days, and recounting the incident said: “My gig as an usher, you could say, was my film class 101 in screenwriting.”
“I just wrote about what I knew. I was writing about this little kind of mentally challenged guy who happened to have a lot of heart,” Stallone said of his early Rocky Balboa character as it came into shape in his mind and on the page, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
TIFF had scheduled a screening of the original ‘Rocky’ movie, the iconic boxing classic which sees an underdog boxer in Philadelphia suddenly getting the opportunity to get into the big leagues and fight the world champion of heavyweight boxing, Apollo Creed for the position, on late night of September 15.
The movie was screened outdoors, near to Roy Thomson Hall on King Street. “I wanted to write a movie about a guy who says ‘I’m not great at all, never will be. I fight great fighters. But I just want the opportunity to go the distance’”, Stallone said of his original Rocky character.
He added Rocky and the Rocky Balboa character represented the apex of his career, because no one at first in Hollywood wanted to make the movie. “Nobody wanted to make it. It was my best writing too,” he said.
The iconic Hollywood star, best known for his tough guy Rocky and Rambo movie franchises, also opened up about his early days as an actor.
“I didn’t have the bones to be a Shakespearean actor. It’s important as an artiste to know what your strengths are, but more important to know your weaknesses,” Stallone said.
All of this comes, as Stallone’s documentary film ‘Sly’, will hit the TIFF stage on a later date as it won’t be affected by the ongoing Hollywood strikes.
Stallone’s longevity in Hollywood as an actor, writer and producer goes back to 1976 and covers over 50 films that together grossed about $3 billion at the box office. Stallone expressed surprise at clips of early TV appearances during the 1980s to market his early ‘Rocky’ movies.
As a writer, director, actor and producer, Stallone is best known for movies like the ‘Rocky’ franchise and its ‘Creed’ spinoffs, ‘The Expendables’, ‘Rambo’ franchise, ‘Demolition Man’, ‘Cliffhanger’, ‘Cop Land’, ‘Judge Dredd’ and ‘The Suicide Squad’. Stallone has now ventured onto the small screen, playing Dwight Manfredi in the series ‘Tulsa King’.
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