Hey, Those Guys Look Like
Rocky
In Spy Kids, Sylvester Stallone plays
an unconventional four-part role to appease his inner child
By RICHARD CORLISS
Tuesday, Jul. 22, 2003
He is the Toymaker, the brainy bad guy bent on ruling the cyberworld.
He holds conferences with three advisers — a steely general,
a bald scientist and a blissed-out hippie — all played
by the one actor. Sylvester Stallone is simply the guest villain
of Robert Rodriguez's 3-D video game, but when the veteran star
is onscreen, this Spy Kids plays like Sly Kids.
"Actors who partake in films like this or in animated
films, like I did in Antz, often say, 'I did it for my children,'"
notes Stallone, who's 57 but looks a fit and muscular 15 years
younger. "Nah. You mean you did it for your inner child.
Here I get to scream and act like a total fool and get paid
for it. In a part like this, you really have to let loose and
not worry that you hear the 'acting police' sirens looming in
the background."
Stallone had mentioned to Rodriguez that he had no movies in
which he appears to show his older daughters, Sophia Rose, 6,
and Sistine Rose, 5. As the director recalls, "I told him
he'd get to be a hissable but redeemable bad guy and to play
opposite one of the greatest actors: himself. We sent the kids
an early videotape so they could see how cool their dad is."
Or some might say "was," for Stallone is at least
a decade past his uber-hunk prime. Of his star vehicles after
1994, the top U.S. grosser (a modest $45 million) was the arty
Cop Land. His last action film, D-Tox, hardly played in theaters
at all.
As for Rocky and Rambo: those franchises are sooo last century.
Stallone knows he's lucky to have played two iconic heroes,
but he calls it "the esoteric kiss of death, because you're
never going to be taken seriously. It's like if John Wayne wanted
to dance The Nutcracker. People would say, 'I'm sorry, I don't
care how good you look in a tutu or how you are en pointe, I'm
not buying it.'"
At 57, any man hears the whispers of career mortality. "You
almost feel obligated to get depressed," he says. "What
nags at you is becoming warehoused — having your soul and
your ambition put in cold storage." Your ego too: it's
tough to fade gracefully to character-actor status after 25
years of stardom.
So he'll be starring in and directing Rampart Scandal, about
alleged cop corruption in the Tupac Shakur murder case. He's
also defying age and logic by planning a Rocky VI.
Clearly, the pug boxer is never far from Stallone. His home
is festooned with Rocky arcana, including paintings by the actor.
There's also a photo, taken the day Baghdad fell, of a young
Iraqi hoisting a U.S. flag with Rocky emblazoned on it. The
image pleases and tickles the star: "You know the movie
wasn't playing in Iraq. Why would someone smuggle into the country
a character that represents the American Dream? Did he have
it under his bed thinking, I can't wait to be liberated! It's
the first thing I'm pulling out!?"
In Hollywood, Stallone the star may be history. But in the
rest of the world, he still helps make it.
— Reported by Desa Philadelphia/Los Angeles
From the Jul. 28, 2003 issue of TIME magazine
- Craig Zablo