{"id":187399,"date":"2025-06-15T22:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T22:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/187399\/"},"modified":"2025-06-15T22:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T22:10:10","slug":"the-icon-sylvester-stallone-always-wanted-to-emulate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/187399\/","title":{"rendered":"The icon Sylvester Stallone always wanted to emulate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sylvester<\/p>\n

(Credits: Alamy)<\/p>\n

Sun 15 June 2025 15:15, UK <\/p>\n

Nobody makes a stinker quite like Sylvester Stallone<\/a>. The gravel-voiced star has made bad movies of almost every conceivable shape and size. Somebody thought it would be a good idea for him to direct a sequel to Saturday Night Fever, the god-awful Staying Alive, but luckily, he had the good sense not to cast himself as John Travolta\u2019s replacement. Chuck in a bunch of cringeworthy action films and the utterly abysmal Rhinestone (which co-stars Dolly Parton, of all people), and you\u2019ve got quite the array of garbage. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to remember that Donald Trump\u2019s \u2018Special Ambassador to Hollywood<\/a>\u2019 has made some good stuff too. The first Rocky movie, which he starred in and wrote, is an Oscar-winning \u2018Best Picture\u2019 smash. His more successful efforts in the action genre include Demolition Man, Cobra, and First Blood, the progenitor of the Rambo franchise. He\u2019s had a great run, but in all fairness, he has had one hell of an idol to look up to.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the release of both Rocky IV and Rambo: First Blood Part II, Stallone was interviewed by Pop Culture Classics<\/a>, who wanted to get to the heart of his mammoth success. According to the actor, part of his strategy was to stay in his own lane. \u201cI try not to fool around and take risks with the studio\u2019s money and their trust, just for my ego gratification,\u201d he admitted, \u201cI\u2019m not going to do Chekhov.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve looked at Clint Eastwood and seen what worked for him. When he vacillated from that, he got killed,\u201d Stallone continued. \u201cIt\u2019s not that he\u2019s not a good actor. It\u2019s just that the audience has a rapport for a certain character. When they pay five dollars, they don\u2019t want to all of a sudden see a guy coming out in a powdered wig. They just want to see what they expect. It fits. It\u2019s comfortable. It\u2019s like being at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time of this interview, Eastwood wasn\u2019t long removed from two of his most infamous films. Any Which Way but Loose and its sequel, Any Which Way You Can, put him in the role of Philo Beddoe, a nomadic bare-knuckle boxer. Oh, and he just so happens to own a pet orangutan named Clyde. These bizarre comedies didn\u2019t do too badly<\/a> at the box office, but were mauled by critics, many of whom agreed that Eastwood should never ever attempt to be funny again. No doubt, Stallone was one of those sliding in his seat when he first saw them. <\/p>\n

Arguably, it wasn\u2019t until Eastwood returned to his roots that he reclaimed his spot at the top of the mountain. Six years after Stallone namechecked him, he directed and starred in Unforgiven, a subversive take on the Western genre that had its leading man a household name. This was a massive career win for Eastwood, who joined Stallone as the star of a \u2018Best Picture\u2019 winner and also collected a \u2018Best Director\u2019 statue that same night, something his apprentice has never been able to do. <\/p>\n

Ironically, the same year that Unforgiven hit screens, Stallone had his own fumble. He appeared in a so-called \u2018comedy\u2019 action movie called Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. Yes, it was every bit as awful as it sounds. Should have stuck to your own advice, Sly. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Alamy) Sun 15 June 2025 15:15, UK Nobody makes a stinker quite like Sylvester Stallone. The gravel-voiced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[43927,77,3943,76839,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-187399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-clint-eastwood","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-sylvester-stallone","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114689672954447310","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}