{"id":846319,"date":"2026-09-13T12:02:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T12:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/846319\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T12:02:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T12:02:15","slug":"anthony-ippolito-says-meeting-sylvester-stallone-was-daunting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/846319\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Ippolito Says Meeting Sylvester Stallone Was ‘Daunting’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAnthony Ippolito<\/a>, who stars as a young Sylvester Stallone<\/a> in I Play Rocky<\/a>, opened up about speaking with the action star in preparation for the biopic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Purple Hearts actor told The Hollywood Reporter at the Toronto International Film Festival<\/a> on Saturday that talking with Stallone about his life, early career, and the development of Rocky was an \u201coverwhelming\u201d experience. Ippolito plays Stallone in Peter Farrelly\u2019s I Play Rocky, which follows the tumultuous production of the 1976 boxing film that won three Oscars, including best picture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u200aI got to speak to Stallone prior to making the movie. It was a lot to take in because I\u2019d spent over a year, by that point, studying him,\u201d Ippolito said at THR\u2018s Studio at 1 Hotel during TIFF<\/a>, presented by sponsor Canada Goose. \u201cIt was very overwhelming and daunting. There\u2019s a lot going on in my head, but I was really just trying to listen as much as possible and hear his perspective. Obviously, Rocky\u2019s an underdog story and he\u2019s an underdog in the movie, but Stallone in a lot of ways was an underdog in his actual life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIppolito revealed that he and Stallone chatted about Stallone\u2019s early childhood and many of the difficulties he had to overcome, including paralysis of the lower left side of his face after doctors accidentally severed a nerve during childbirth. The complication gave Stallone his signature voice and look, which became famous when Rocky hit theaters in the \u201870s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSince he was born, he had this facial paralysis that kind of made everything difficult,\u201d Ippolito shared. \u201c[The paralysis] obviously made trying to become an actor really difficult. And so, hearing his firsthand account of what that is like; he really just endured a lot and went through a lot. It\u2019s a miracle that this film came to be and that people still celebrate it 50 years later.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFilmmaker Farrelly expanded on the challenges Stallone faced bringing Rocky to the big screen, adding that the studio at the time put up roadblocks in hopes that they could recast and find another actor to play Rocky Balboa. Stallone wrote the screenplay for the film and insisted he played the lead character.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDistributed by United Artists and later MGM, Rocky became one of the most financially successful sports film<\/a> franchises of all time, grossing over $1.7 billion globally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u200aI think a lot of people know bits of [the story], but I didn\u2019t know the big picture,\u201d Farrelly said. \u201cAll the twists and turns; there are millions. \u2026 There\u2019s so many things, like the way the studio \u2014 not only were they fighting him, but then once he got on board, they were \u2014 I don\u2019t want to say they were sabotaging him \u2014 but they were making it hard for him so that if he got behind schedule, they could replace him with somebody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUltimately, Stallone\u2019s opinion of I Play Rocky is one the cast and crew care most about, Farrelly said. The Rambo star has seen the movie and given his seal of approval, the director added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[Stallone] loved it. It\u2019s such a relief. I was afraid because he watched it alone, for one thing, and this plays really well with a crowd,\u201d Farrelly said. \u201cI was nervous \u2014 him sitting there alone \u2014 and for many other reasons. There\u2019s a lot of stuff in there, especially the beginning when he\u2019s down and out. It\u2019s rough to watch.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI Play Rocky will open nationwide in theaters<\/a> Nov. 20 following a limited release on Nov. 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Ippolito, who stars as a young Sylvester Stallone in I Play Rocky, opened up about speaking with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[327720,88,256898,53559,46686,341146,56692],"class_list":["post-846319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-anthony-ippolito","tag-entertainment","tag-i-play-rocky","tag-sylvester-stallone","tag-tiff","tag-toronto-2026","tag-toronto-international-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}