Walking away from Rocky
Sylvester Stallone currently stands as the single biggest action movie star in Hollywood history — with the possible exception of The Governator, a.k.a. Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, as is the case with the Austrian bodybuilder, it wasn’t always that way…
Indeed, for many years, the aspiring actor was very much that — aspiring to be standing anywhere near a movie camera. He famously had cameos in low budget movies here and there in the early 1970’s — including as a New York thug in Woody Allen’s 1971 classic political comedy Bananas — and equally famously went all the way to starring in a (softcore) pornographic movie just to make ends meet. He also performed in all sorts of low budget shows, some of which also having an erotic aspect to it — the man at least had his physique. The point is, like so many other actors before and after him, the road was anything but paved.
Then came the moment Stallone had been waiting for: tired of waiting for a good script to come his way, he’d actually written one himself. For a character he truly believed in: the (also) struggling boxer Rocky Balboa. And he felt that not only did the script work, but it could also, finally, be his way into major starring roles. And so he fought for it to be made, all the way to a major movie studio. Which did offer to buy the script — but without him starring in it: after all, the man was virtually unknown at the time, and they logically wanted to hire someone with some brand recognition. Spoiler alert: Balboa loses in the first film, not an easy sell with an unknown leading man, then or now…
This was still a major opportunity: the studio was effectively offering hundreds of thousands of dollars for the screenplay. Enough money — in the 1970’s — to live off very comfortably for quite some time. A welcome break given the many years of hardship the actor had endured up to that point. Lo and behold… he refused the deal, specifying that the movie would get made with him in the main role or not at all. And he went back to “eating cobwebs”, as he once eloquently put it in a Howard Stern interview. 3 months later, the studio called back. And the rest, as they say, is history.
It is incredibly easy — and often seductive — to rewrite history in order to fit your version of what happened better. In this case, the genius of Sylvester Stallone was such that he would have had his way no matter what. And he was 100% right to refuse the screenplay deal, which made a mockery of his talents as an actor, leaving him to remain a tier 2 (or 3) performer while the movie would probably have also been lukewarm without its creator in it. The truth is, you can never tell what is going to work out or not. And he was definitely not certain his acting career would have another chance of taking off. And, as he added in the aforementioned interview, the only reason the movie did get made with him in it is because a few people stood by it against all odds. Still, he was willing to put everything on the line, including a significant level of material comfort, just because he couldn’t compromise his vision. And that took actual courage, there and then.
That is what makes Sylvester Stallone stand out, more than his physical prowess, or work ethic or staying power — the fact that he couldn’t sacrifice what he believed in, no matter how tempting that perspective was… and no matter how high the risk was to remain in the shadows for the rest of his life. You don’t always know what is going to happen — you actually hardly ever do — and will inevitably be faced with crossroads such as this one. Try and keep a clear mind, focusing on what you truly believe in. Regardless the shiny objects that are being brandished before your eyes.