The best action stars of the 1980s built their reputations on being bigger, stronger and better at beating up the bad guys. But in a rare act of modesty, Sylvester Stallone broke his cover and admitted that he was not a leader. Who could be more powerful than Sylvester Stallone, the man behind the films Rocky and Rambo?
Well, Stallone admitted that Arnold Schwarzenegger “superiorized” him during the years when they each made their best films as big-screen action films.
In the recent Netflix series Arnold, the Rambo star chronicles the competitive relationship between the two men that led to the old Schwarzenegger-Stallone feud. The two have since patched up their relationship and worked on several new films together, but Stallone said the battle lines had been drawn within the genre.
He said: “You actually relied on your body to tell this story. There was no need for dialogue.
I saw there was an opportunity because no one else was doing it…except some guy from Austria who didn’t have to say much.”And unfortunately for Stallone, he had to admit that the guy from Austria seemed to have a lot going for him. “Like [Muhammad] Ali and [Joe] Frazier, or great warriors walking the same path, there was only room for one thing for us,”
Stallone said. “He was taller.
He simply had all the answers. He had a body. He had power. That was his character.”Stallone joked that his roles required him to “kick my as.. all the time,” while Arnie felt like he “could go out and fight a dragon and [he’d] come back with a Band-Aid.” The fact that they are both still beating up villains on screen even in their 70s shows that there was plenty of room for both Ali and Frazier this time around.