CRIMINALLY GOOD
Sylvester Stallone happy to be playing a Mob boss in his first TV role
After nearly 50 years, Sylvester Stallone has finally landed his dream role playing a Mob boss in the Paramount+ series Tulsa King.
“It's taken a while,” Stallone, 76, says with a dry laugh during an interview in a downtown Toronto hotel. “I've been wanting to do it since I saw The Godfather — even prior to The Godfather.”
Long before he became a household name playing Rocky Balboa and John Rambo, the actor-writer-director tried to jump-start his career as an extra in the famous Godfather wedding scene. He was turned down for not looking Italian enough.
“So finally, it's come to fruition,” he says of his starring role in the 10-part series streaming on Paramount+. “It feels good.”
The crime-drama casts Stallone as Dwight `The General' Manfredi, a mafioso who is released from prison after 25 years and promptly jettisoned to Oklahoma to build a new criminal empire.
Tulsa King marks Stallone's first foray into television as an actor — he also stars in an upcoming reality show that chronicles his home life with his daughters — Sophia, 26, Sistine, 24 and Scarlet, 20 — and wife Jennifer Flavin, from whom he briefly split earlier this year.
Stallone spoke about Tulsa King, revealed the hardest movie he's ever made and told us the one thing that will make him retire.
Q What first hooked you about Dwight Manfredi?
A It's hard to find anything that's different nowadays. Everything is derivative. But here they took a little of this and mixed it with that. They took a fella who is a classic gangster, and they gave him a reason to be an underdog. He's been in jail for 25 years for something he didn't really do and now when he's supposed to be rewarded for keeping his mouth shut, they betray him and send him out west, which is basically saying: “You're banished. You're done.”
From there he proceeds to build a whole new life with the strangest group of characters you've ever seen. And therein lies the message of how you have to be ready for what life throws at you to try and turn it around into something positive.
Q This is your first TV role. Had you been watching what was going on in the TV world and thinking you wanted to get involved in that space?
A The industry has changed a lot ... they spend so much money on streaming shows now — more than features — that they finally have lured the best-of-the-best in talent. Everyone. I was just speaking to a producer the other day and he asked me if I'd rather go (theatrical) or streaming, and I said streaming service. In today's (environment), unless you're doing some kind of bombastic tentpole movie — a Marvel extravaganza — you're better off in streaming, I think.
Q How has your approach to your craft changed in the last few decades?
A I look at it like you would a machine gun. When you're young, you have unlimited ammunition. You're spraying it everywhere, mowing everything down. But at my age, you look down and see that you have nine bullets left. So you pick your targets very carefully. You're not as haphazard.
When I look at some of the films I've done, I've asked myself why I did them. Back then, you think you're invincible, and someone will come to the rescue — the producer or the director — and that's not true. You end up taking the blame. Now I look at everything as if it might be the last thing I'll do. I pretend seriously that this could be my last go around, so I better nail it.
Q What about your acting? How has that changed?
A There's a lot more gravitas. I look back, and it's almost like a bodybuilder. When you're 19, 20 you might have a really good body, but your man muscles don't come around until you're 35. That's when you've hit your peak as a bodybuilder. So as you mature as an actor, you'll find some — like Anthony Hopkins — who keep getting better and better and better. They learn nuance. The younger actors will shout or overdo it, but an older actor can just sit there and with a gesture steal the whole scene.
Q Everyone knows the story of the first Rocky movie, how you could have sold it but you
wouldn't have been able to star in it. But it took 16 years to make the sixth entry in that series. How hard was it to get Rocky Balboa made?
A That was the hardest one ever. It was a master class in rejection ... I would say Rocky Balboa was the hardest and most precious film I've ever done because no one wanted to do it. I was done. I was literally told by studios, “Rocky's over and you're over.”
I was at my lowest depths back then. Even the producer — Irwin Winkler — basically said, “Over my dead body.” I didn't understand why there was so much hatred. By a miracle, I was in a bar on New Year's Eve in Mexico and across the room was Joe Roth, who is a producer. He asked me how it was going and if I written anything. So I sent (the script for Rocky Balboa) to him and he called me the next day and said, “My wife read it and cried.” That moment I knew I was in.
The fear of failure makes you say, `I still got something left in me.' You're like a fighter until you finally get knocked out cold.
Q Do you still feel like you have something to prove?
A Yeah, isn't that sad? I think you always have something to prove. People say to me, “You have nothing left to prove,” and those are just words. In your insecure brain there's always that notion that (makes you wonder) can you still do it? Do you still have it? If you don't do it, are you going to be forgotten?
All these little idiosyncratic, fearful things you have percolating around in your brain keep you moving on. The fear of failure makes you say, “I still got something left in me.” You're like a fighter until you finally get knocked out cold (laughs).
I haven't been knocked cold yet, but I've been staggered a few times. So I'll keep going on until my wife goes, “You're done.” Then I'll pull the plug.