HE’S SO SLY
Iconic Rocky star Sylvester Stallone on his rocky start; bumps, broken bones and bruises; suffering for his art; and finally— finally—getting to play a mobster in Tulsa King.
“Keep punching until you can’t punch no more. It’s always been that way for me.”
Sylvester Stallone is confessing a crime. “I worked as an usher at the Baronet Theater in 1970 and would wear the same tuxedo that the two guys on the previous shifts wore; my God, were they smelly,” he says. “My job was to change the letters and the number of rating stars on the marquee. So one night, I stole one of the stars. Another worker goes, ‘What are you going to do with that?’ I told him, ‘I’m going to put it on the door when I do the Johnny Carson show.’ He said, ‘You’re so full of s--t.’ But I did it. And I still have that star.”
That minor theft certainly didn’t land him in the clink, but the criminal act he’s about to commit tonight? That’s a different story.
“We’re burying a biker gang member we just killed.”
MARRIED TO THE MOB
Stallone, 76, is sitting in his trailer in a junkyard on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. The actor—whose résumé includes the Rocky f ranchise, the Rambo franchise,
The Lords of Flatbush, Tango & Cash, Cliffhanger, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and the recent superhero/action flick
Samaritan—is here filming a scene for
Tulsa King (streaming Nov. 13 on Paramount+), a new crime drama from Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan. In this first regular TV series in Stallone’s career, he plays Dwight Manfredi, a New York City mafioso ex-con sent to set up operations in Tulsa, Okla. “Dwight is a fish out of water,” says Stallone. “He’s a New York guy in cowboy land. I love the challenges and the possibilities that it brings.”
In his legendary dramatic career, the actor known as “Sly” has played everything from a boxer with a heart of gold
to a Green Beret who rips out bad guys’ hearts when he’s feeling testy. But up until now, trying to land a juicy mafioso role left him feeling like he was languishing in witness protection. “I’ve always wanted to play a mob guy, and I remember saying to [director] Marty Scorsese, ‘What is it exactly that I have to do to convince you, murder you?’” He laughs. “I’ll never forget that I tried to be an extra in the wedding scene of The Godfather and couldn’t get a part. I was like, ‘I can’t get any more Italian—what am I doing wrong here?’ ”
But while the Hollywood mobsters weren’t banging on his door, real ones were—literally. Stallone explains that shortly after Rocky III came out, word got around that he was interested in doing the Sammy the Bull story, about the notorious mobster who became an underboss of the Gambino crime family. “All of a sudden, these three guys show up at my door and say, ‘That’s not a good idea,’ ” he says. “So I told them, ‘(A) I have no plans to do that, and (B) stop staring at me like I’m a warm meal.’ ”
The mobsters took him at his word, and to make it up to him, they took Stallone out to play a round of golf. “On Monday, they came to kill me. On Tuesday, they’re wearing matching Bermuda shorts, tipping caddies with hundred-dollar bills and shanking shots into flocks of geese. Pure comedy.”
While Tulsa King is a drama, Stallone’s sometimes twisted sense of humor has seeped into his character and the overall tone of the show. Showrunner and writer Terence Winter, whose credits include The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire, says, “His understanding of his character has helped shape more moments and storylines than I can count.”
LIGHTS, CAMERA, AMBULANCE!
There are fewer and fewer true Hollywood icons left in the world, and at this stage in Sly’s career, it would be reasonable to think that a guy whose movies have grossed more than $3 billion domestically would be the type of megastar who emerges from his trailer, says his lines when a director calls “Action!” and then jumps on a private jet heading home, right? “Whatever the opposite of that is, that’s the type of person Sly Stallone is,” says Tulsa King producer Braden Aftergood. “He shares his thoughts—from the big-picture storyline down to the words coming out of his character’s mouth. He brings his vast experience to the table.”
Here in this dark, buggy junkyard, when Stallone walks onto the set, a buzz shoots through the crew, from the director all the way down to the guy making sure nobody trips over an extension cord. The actor is clearly not of the “Don’t make eye contact with me” variety. He messes around with cast member Garrett Hedlund as they stand over the hole where they are soon to deposit the aforementioned unlucky biker, and he playfully shoos away a makeup artist who is spritzing him with water to make him look sweaty. “All of my life people are spraying me with ice-cold water,” he says, “and you can never even see it on film!”
For sure, he’s no stranger to suffering for his art. When the topic turns to on-set injuries, Stallone holds up his phone and flips through a nightmarish hellscape of bloody, burnt and broken-bone selfies. “I was bitten by a poisonous spider in Thailand; they blew up a car across the street, and of course shrapnel landed on
me!” he says. “I tell everyone, if you can avoid doing your own stunts, avoid doing your own stunts! You’re not really a hero. You’re not at war in Iraq. I’ve had well over 45 procedures from movie stunts gone wrong, and all I can say is that I am grateful for epidurals.”
In 2017, Stallone stepped into the Marvel Comics universe via his role as interstellar criminal Stakar Ogord in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Maybe he’d prefer shooting like that, in an air-conditioned studio in front of a green screen rather than a blazing-hot junkyard? “No,” he says. “I did that, and after three days, I wanted to kill myself. It’s like being trapped in an aquarium. Same room, same temperature, same clothing. Imagine getting up at 3:30 a.m. for three hours of makeup? I told [co-star] Dave Bautista, ‘You’re a legend to be able to do this.’ ”
ROCKY’S LEGACY
Watching him float around the set, it is easy to forget that the guy who became famous for creating the indelible image of a young boxer is now 76 years old. Born in the notorious Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, Stallone and his younger brother, Frank, grew up in a household with their dad, Frank, a hairdresser and beautician, and mother, Jackie, who promoted women’s wrestling. Complications in Stallone’s birth necessitated the use of forceps for his delivery, accidentally severing a nerve and causing partial paralysis in his face. Such a difficult entry into the world, though, provided a couple of things that would become his trademarks as an actor—his signature snarl and slurred speech.
His parents, he says, nurtured his creativity. His childhood and home life certainly funneled into his movie breakthrough—and his most memorable role. “I grew up in that [Rocky] culture,” he says. “My father was very rough, and I just dialed into that. But I was also on the other side; even though I was somewhat physical, I was always artistically inclined, painting this and that.”
He famously decided to transform his body and his life at the age of 12 after seeing the movie Hercules Unchained. (“I left the movie and went by a scrapyard and made some weights out of old brake drums and car parts.”) Fitness continues to be a part of his life; he’s in better shape than most 20-year-olds. “I’ve switched over from weights to Pilates and resistance bands. Weights create uneducated muscles, but your muscles are dying for a job! I always advise people to jump rope, hit the speed bag; your arm wants to do something besides flex!”
His muscles did more than just flex in Rocky, which, in 1976, rocketed him from struggling actor to superstardom at the age of 30. By now the story is Hollywood legend: Stallone, so broke he had to sell his dog to buy food, was offered around $300,000 ($1.8 million today) for the screenplay about a scrappy, broke Philly boxer. And he said no—unless he could star in it. “I just knew I would be the most miserable person for the rest of my life if I let that role go,” he says. “I knew it would shorten my life, so it was just one of those situations where you just let it all ride.”
It was a gamble that paid off (and yes, he bought his dog back, at “a significantly higher price”). More than four decades after Rocky’s premiere, “I have people show me their tattoos of Rocky, and what boggles my mind is young kids—6-yearolds—who love this character who is twoand-a-half generations before their time. How do they relate to this boxer? I think it is that this guy with no real attributes, besides his dignity, prevails.”
Stallone might be a superstar, but he is just like almost everyone else in that if he’s flipping around the channels and Rocky comes on, he’s watching. “But I do it for a different reason,” he says. “I think, Oh, I did have a good hairline back then. So you just watch yourself become more decrepit.” He laughs. “My viewing is