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During a PaleyFest NY 2026 panel on Saturday, Oct. 10, Sylvester Stallone said he and former rival Arnold Schwarzenegger are now “good friends”
The actor compared their history to his Tulsa King character Dwight Manfredi’s relationship with Frank Grillo’s Bill Bevilaqua, a rival mob boss
“There’s a respect. We’re very similar types,” Stallone, 80, said of their characters during the event. “It’s like me and Schwarzenegger,” he added
Sylvester Stallone is reflecting on his once-contentious rivalry with Arnold Schwarzenegger, revealing that they’re now “good friends.”
Stallone, 80, was discussing his crime comedy-drama Tulsa King during a PaleyFest NY 2026 panel on Saturday, Oct. 10, when he likened their relationship to the on-screen dynamic between his character, Dwight Manfredi, and Frank Grillo‘s Bill Bevilaqua, a rival mob boss.
Grillo, 61, described the relationship between the characters as having an “ebb and flow” throughout the show. “I don’t think they trust each other, but there are times when they need each other,” he said.
Stallone echoed his sentiment, explaining, “There’s a certain camaraderie… there’s a respect. We’re very similar types.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone at the ‘Creed’ world premiere in Los Angeles on Nov. 19, 2015
Credit: Eric Charbonneau/Getty for Warner Bros
He continued, “It’s like me and Schwarzenegger. We’re good friends now. We’ve gotten mellow. But you have these two adversarial guys, and sometimes you really find that in real life, that just continues to up your game. That’s it.”
Terence Winter, executive producer of the Paramount+ series, added, “The essence of any dramatic situation is that kind of conflict… They’re so great on screen together. Dwight and [Bill] are really magic, and you just want to write to that.”
Stallone and Schwarzenegger, 79, had a well-documented rivalry that’s believed to date back to the Golden Globe Awards in 1977. Stallone’s Rocky was nominated in six categories, winning Best Motion Picture — Drama, while Schwarzenegger won New Star of the Year for Stay Hungry.
Stallone later claimed Schwarzenegger laughed at him when Rocky lost in the other categories. When the movie won its sole award, Stallone reportedly threw a bowl of flowers at his rival.
Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France in 1990
Credit: Eric Robert/Sygma/Sygma via Getty
In 1985, Schwarzenegger alleged in an interview with now-defunct U.K. newspaper The News of the World that Stallone used body doubles in some of his movies, while the Austria-born star has also admitted tricking Stallone into doing the 1992 movie Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, which was panned by critics.
Stallone said in 2022 that the pair “truly loathed” each other in the 1990s, but by the end of the decade, their rivalry had waned.
Schwarzenegger even invited Stallone to one of his inaugurations as Governor of California, The Independent reported.
The pair went on to appear in the first three movies of The Expendables franchise together, as well as the 2013 action thriller Escape Plan.
In the 2023 Netflix documentary series Arnold, Stallone reflected on his former rival’s career. “He wanted to be number one. Unfortunately, he got there,” he said, while the following year, Schwarzenegger said the rivalry helped his career because it gave him something he could “chase.”
Sylvester Stallone in Paramount+’s ‘Tulsa King’
Credit: 101 Studios / MTV Entertainment Studios / Album/Alamy
In 2025, Schwarzenegger again looked back on their feud, admitting that they “hated” each other. “We were kind of attacking each other and doing nasty things and saying nasty things about each other and all these stupid things,” he told Andy Cohen on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy.
He revealed that their reconciliation began with an unexpected business venture.
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“All of a sudden, I started working with Robert Earl and Keith Parish to create the Planet Hollywood franchise, those restaurants,” he explained, telling Cohen that he and Stallone’s lawyer asked him if his rival could get involved.
“That’s actually a good idea, because it could bring us together. And I wanted that. At that point I had grown out of my craziness,” he recalled thinking at the time.
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