{"id":676635,"date":"2026-05-17T11:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T11:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/676635\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T11:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T11:44:11","slug":"sylvester-stallone-recalls-tense-exchange-at-1977-oscars-id-never-been-hit-with-such-blunt-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/676635\/","title":{"rendered":"Sylvester Stallone recalls tense exchange at 1977 Oscars: \u2018I\u2019d never been hit with such blunt force\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Sylvester Stallone hasn\u2019t forgotten a decades-old exchange about Rocky that took place at the 1977 Oscars.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Deadline in a new interview honoring the film\u2019s 50th anniversary, Stallone <\/a>reminisced about Rocky<\/a>, for which he was nominated for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay Oscars. The film famously won Best Picture.<\/p>\n

But the statues weren\u2019t the only thing being doled out on that evening in 1977, as Stallone said he was jabbed at by screenwriter and fellow nominee Paddy Chayefsky<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a tiny guy, very brazen, and he comes up to me and says, \u2018You\u2019re new in this town,\u2019\u201d Stallone<\/a>, 79, recalled. \u201c\u2018First of all, your screenplay is never going to win.\u2019 I go, \u2018Why do you say that?\u2019 He says, \u2018Because I\u2019m the president of The Writers Guild, and mine is going to win.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Chayefsky, who died in 1981, wasn\u2019t wrong; he went on to win that evening for Network.<\/p>\n

\"SylvesterSylvester Stallone has recalled a conversation between himself and another screenwriter at the 1977 Oscars (Getty)<\/p>\n

However, as Stallone recalled, the conversation didn\u2019t end there.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe goes, \u2018You\u2019re not winning Best Picture either, because Network is going to win Best Picture.\u2019 I thought, \u2018Holy crap!\u2019 I\u2019d never been hit with such blunt force, and then he walked away. He got Best Screenplay, but we got the big one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe playwright and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky in London in 1968. Stallone described him as \u2018a tiny guy, very brazen\u2019 (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Stallone hasn\u2019t forgotten about the exchange but he also didn\u2019t appear to let it define his Oscars experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cMe being me, it was all quite profound, and after we won, I thought, \u2018The good news is, I\u2019ve peaked \u2014 and the bad news is, I\u2019ve peaked,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d just turned 30 years old and was like, \u2018How are you going to top this?\u2019 But here we are, 50 years later, and we\u2019re still talking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stallone continued to say that the only night to rival the 1977 Oscars evening was when he was honored at the Kennedy Center in 2025<\/a>. He was presented the award by President Donald Trump<\/a> \u2014 but not without incident.<\/p>\n

Trump introduced Stallone as \u201ca friend of mine, a wonderful person, a really spectacular person, one of the true great movie stars there are,\u201d before reading out his name as \u201cSallone.\u201d He then repeated the mispronunciation as he put a medallion around Stallone\u2019s neck. <\/p>\n

\"StalloneStallone pictured a month before his Oscar win in 1977. He hasn\u2019t forgotten his exchange with Chayefsky but said he didn\u2019t let it define his experience (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Stallone was chosen as a 2025 Kennedy Center honoree alongside singers Gloria Gaynor and George Strait, the rock band Kiss, and actor Michael Crawford.<\/p>\n

The actor is a public supporter of Trump and praised him as a \u201cmythical creature\u201d <\/a>after he won the 2024 presidential election. <\/p>\n

Stallone was named one of Trump\u2019s three \u201cspecial ambassadors\u201d to Hollywood earlier this year, along with Jon Voight and Mel Gibson, though it was never made clear<\/a> what the job entails.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-676635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}