Sylvester Stallone cemented his place among Hollywood’s top action stars with his breakthrough with the Rocky and Rambo franchises. Although his breakthrough was the result of years of struggle, he has overcome all odds to achieve the success he enjoys today. Considering he has delivered outstanding action scenes, many often forget that he is also afraid of something just like us.
In a 1980 interview, the action star admitted that he feared for his life during a helicopter stunt he was filming for Nighthawks.
While filming the helicopter stunt scene in Nighthawks (1981), Sylvester Stallone was suspended from a helicopter by a 1/8-inch steel cable, dangling 247 feet above the East River in New York City. During the scene, he had to get into the cable car halfway, but he was afraid for his life, one of the reasons being his fear of heights.
“I’ve never been so scared in my life, as when I was dangling from that helicopter. I have a fear of heights that borders on mania. I had to do something like this once in my life.” “So there I was, hanging 250 feet up over the East River, with the wind blowing me back and forth and the constant danger that if the steel cable hit something it could shear in two.”He was quite scared by the stunt as he saw a guy jumping off the bridge a day before filming who hit the water and “exploded.” Unfortunately, the extreme pressure of the current led his body to break into several pieces. He was quite prepared to meet an unexpected end due to the scary stunt sequence.
Sylvester Stallone Was Prepared to Meet His Hypothetical End in Nighthawks
In the same interview, the Rambo star talked about how the guy’s unfortunate death forced him to prepare for a hypothetical ending in order to avoid a tragic end to his life.“If you see the movie and look closely, you’ll see that I’m holding a knife in the scene. My theory was that if I fell, the cable would make me sink unless I could cut the harness loose. After I saw that guy hit the water like it was cement, I changed my plan. The knife was to plunge into my heart a second before I hit.”
Before his second take, he talked about a fireboat below with two divers, whom he mistook for rescuers. However, he revealed that they were there to retrieve bodies that had met their tragic end. Even the actor was no exception. However, he handled the scene well and continued to act in the action genre, cementing his status as an action star. He has captivated audiences for over five decades.