WE REMEMBER MEETING THE CHAMP HIMSELF…

THE LEGENDARY LIVERPOOL manager, Bill Shankly, once invited reporters to meet his new signing, a Scottish giant named Ron Yeats. “Take a walk around my centre half,” Shanks said. “Go on, walk around him.” I felt much the same way when I met Carl Weathers in 2017, when he came to the Empire offices for a podcast interview. I knew going in that he would be large, of course. You don’t trade blows with Sly Stallone and go bicep to bicep with Arnie without being exceptionally pumped. But few things prepare you for meeting Weathers in the flesh. He was on the verge of turning 70, but was strong, powerful, packed into a sharp suit, with a handshake that could grind bone to dust. Walk around him? Sure. I’ll set aside a week. But the real joy of speaking to Carl Weathers, as I would do a couple more times, was in his joy. Madly charming and funny, you could see the forceful personality that persuaded Stallone to not only give him the role of Apollo Creed, but to keep him around for a few Rocky films. When I first met him he was totally at ease, promoting Chicago Justice, in which he had a role that didn’t require him to punch anyone, and you could tell that he was enjoying what he thought was his second act. Chicago Justice, cancelled after one season, was not to be Weathers’ second act: thankfully, The Mandalorian fulfilled that particular function. When I spoke to him again in 2020, he was positively vibrating, even across Zoom, at this unexpected chapter. Who knows where that might have taken him, but the career he had — Apollo, Dillon, Action Jackson, Greef Karga, and more — wasn’t too bad. Walk around him.