He’s by no means modest
– and why should he be? He was Rocky. He was Rambo. He has achieved more than
few of us even imagine possible. Yet, he is not burdened by ego. When you
listen to him talk, the way he speaks about himself and his highs and lows, it’s
usually with adorable self-deprecating humour. I recently came across an
interview he did back in 1989 while in Australia promoting Rambo III; the host
asks him whether this third installment would be the last of the Rambo movies.
His reply was "I think so. Of course I would never trust anything I say,
I've not been proven right quite a lot". And that's pretty much his
approach in all his interviews; candid, tongue in cheek, and a lot of fun to
listen to.
Physically, I mean body
wise, the man is phenomenal. He achieved his peak in the 90s – no wonder he
stripped down to nothing in practically every movie he did at the time!
If you've got it, then by all means lay bare your perfectly
sculptured butt to the world. No complaint from this quarter. The man is 66 now
and still in astounding shape. Now that’s commitment to a cause.
Life didn't start out
all sunshine and heavy bags for Stallone. A botched forceps delivery left him
with one side of his face partially paralyzed which caused his
"perennial snarl" as he calls it (“people ask me, why don’t you
smile? and I say, I can’t! Maybe if I stand on my head! "). His not so
lucid locution is also a result of this. You wouldn't expect someone with those
setbacks to pursue a career in acting. Yet the scrawny kid with a
lisp, who bore the same moniker as a cartoon cat, transformed himself through
relentless hard work and the gumption to go on even with no reward in sight.
Even the mildest Rocky
fan probably knows how he started out. The struggling actor with just 106
dollars in the bank, the one who sold his dog because
he couldn't afford to feed him; one day went down to watch a boxing
match between Chuck Wepner and Mohammed Ali and changed the world. Well, maybe
not changed, but at least jolted it a little bit. In three and a half days, in
a caffeine fueled writing binge, Stallone came up with a rough draft
of what would eventually become the Rocky story we know and love. The story of
how the studio wanted to buy the script from him and how he refused to sell
out, insisting that be allowed to star in it, is now part of Hollywood legend.
The studio finally relented, allowing the no-name actor to star, gave them a
heavily restricted budget and a month to film. They made the movie in 28 days
on a budget of less than a million dollars but somehow, during the making of
Rocky, magic happened.
A lot of it has to
do with the story. There’s this bruiser who is down on his luck, pretty much
resorted to reduce his love for boxing to more or less a hobby and working as
muscle for a loan shark. You would expect this man to be a bullish, hot headed
lump. But instead, he is a gentle giant. One of the reasons director John
Avildson was said to have loved the script was because of the early scene
where Rocky comes home after his fight with Spider Rico and then has a
conversation with his pet turtles (the ever enduring Cuff and Link). Then
again this story is presented to us wrapped up around such an amazing cast.
Talia Shire gives us Adrian, who goes from being painfully shy and withdrawn to
become the core of Rocky’s world. Burgess Meredith as Micky; bitingly
sarcastic, tell it like it is Mick; who grows to love Rocky like a son. Burt
young plays Paulie to perfection; jealous, bitter, thinking the world owes him;
yet Rocky sees the good in him and patiently puts up with his belligerence. And
of course what would Rocky be without Carl Weathers, who seems to channel the
great Ali himself in his portrayal of Apollo Creed.
Stallone did something
amazing with the whole Rocky saga. No matter how much you criticize the
sequels, you have to admit that to make Rocky evolve, to narrate a story over
six movies, that's not something that's easy to do. Yet one feels that Rocky is
Stallone's catharsis. Each movie is almost autobiographical, in that Stallone
seems to find a voice through Rocky. It must be therapeutic to write something
that allows you to deal with the turmoil of your own life and to find peace
through your writing, to some extent. If you watch the movies back to back like
I did, the experience is amazing. The final Rocky Balboa ties it all up
lovingly and gives a fitting farewell to a beloved character. No matter how
many times I watch the Rocky saga, that damn movie makes me cry like a girl,
every single time.
Known the world over for
his iconic roles in Rocky and Rambo most people are willing to dismiss him as
being incapable of taking on a serious dramatic role. He proved them wrong in Copland, where he played the overweight,
partially deaf Sheriff Freddy Heflin. Stallone actually piled on 40 pounds for
the role, and I’m glad the director insisted that he did, because that weighed
down look he has; that lumbering, cowed by the world attitude; comes forth
brilliantly as a result.
Every now and then
Stallone has also tried his hand at more comedic roles. The responses to these
by both audiences and critics have not been kind. My feeling is that Stallone
is an acquired taste. If you like the guy, you can like him in pretty much any
role (though Rhinestone really really tests you). Because even
though he’s not so spot on, you know he’s having a lark doing it and you sort
of enjoy it with him.
He's always put so much
effort into each role he takes on that you can't help but be impressed, even if
the movie itself wasn't that great. His commitment to
his characters is always unquestionable and to me, that just makes
him a delight to watch. In Cliffhanger, where he plays Gabe Walker, part of
a mountain rescue team, he really pushes himself to the edge - literally. More
than ninety percent of his stunts, he did himself, and piled on about 20 pounds
of muscle to prep for the role. In a later documentary about the making of the
movie, editor Frank J Urioste points out that some of the shots where Stallone
is scaling the rock face, he's doing it without a safety line.
And this is a guy who admits that heights make him uncomfortable. Imagine
taking on a character to the extent of forgetting your own limitations. During
a later interview, when questioned about his fear of heights, he
quips; “ever since my second marriage I've been terrified of heights”
(referring to his famously disastrous two year marriage to Bridgette
Neilson). Again during an interview on Centerstage he was asked why he does
most of his own stunts (the direct reference was that in Driven he had actually hit over 200mph on
the track) and his reply; “because I’m an idiot”.
The thing with Stallone
is, he is somewhat of a perfectionist and to say he works hard at a role is an
understatement. With Rocky he pretty much revolutionized way boxing movies and
indeed sports movies were presented. The way the fight between Rocky and Creed
was filmed; boxing matches in movies had never been presented like that before,
with the audience able to see the whole fluidity of the two people in the ring
instead of close shots like was the norm at the time. But the boxing coach they
had hired didn't agree with Stallone's vision. When Stallone said to him;
"I'd like to have Carl Weathers come out of the corner and throw four
right hands right away” he refused saying that it wouldn’t happen that way in a
real fight and ultimately quit. The workaround Avildson came up with
was to script the fight and that’s exactly what Stallone did. Jab by jab, move
by move he scripted the entire 15 rounds and that’s how the amazing fight
sequence between Rocky and Apollo Creed came into being. When filming Rocky
Balboa at the age of 60, not only did Stallone undergo six weeks of rigorous
training to come up with the astounding physique you see in the movie, he made
the fight more realistic too. A hit is a hit and when Stallone goes down in the
ring, he goes down for real. So inspired was Antonio Tarver (who plays reigning
heavyweight champion Mason Dixon and Rocky’s opponent in the ring) that he says
“One thing I’ve learned from the movie. I was going to give myself a three year
window (and) hang up my gloves. But seeing Rocky Balboa, seeing Sylvester
Stallone, who knows, I may be able to do this five, six, seven years to come.”
When asked about his
place in the movie industry Stallone says that he considers himself an
"outsider". For certain, he is not beloved by critics, even if some
of the movies panned by them did rather well at the box office. Stallone
may never be considered a brilliant actor. The double nominations he got from
the Academy for Rocky (best screenplay and best actor - only the third person
to be nominated in both categories in the same year) will quite possibly be the
first and last nod he gets from them. But when you consider him, you have to
consider him as Stallone the person, not Stallone the actor. Stallone the
person, is an amazingly intelligent, spontaneously funny man who is not slow to
admit when he’s wrong nor to bask in it a little when he gets it right. He’s a
guy who keeps going and doesn't seem to feel the need to slow down,
let alone stop. Indeed he seems to live by the adage in the unforgettable
speech from Rocky Balboa when he said “it’s not about how hard you hit, it’s
about how hard you can get hit... How much you can take and keep moving
forward…”
Rocky was not about wining;
it was about having the heart to go the distance. And in life, that's pretty
much what Stallone has done. He may not have won each fight but he sure as hell is going
the distance. At five-foot-ten he may seem smallish; but those shoes, man, it’s
going to take a helluva lot to fill those shoes he leaves behind.
