Sylvester Stallone opens up about the extreme lengths he went to to achieve his physique for the Rocky franchise.
In an interview given Saturday to New York Times promoting his new memoir, The stepsreleased on September 29, Stallone reflected on how his relationship with his body has changed over the course of his career. At the height of Rocky and Rambo, the actor became known for his exceptionally muscular physique.
“It became very intimate, you could say. It was my armor. I looked at Rocky: a very gentle, very normal-looking guy. And then I said, I think the character is going to start to become a little more vain. And then in Rambo, you play a warrior, so you would be a little more animalistic. You wouldn’t be as smooth,” he said. “I started thinking: Design your body like a jaguar, a cat. Not big like Arnold (Schwarzenegger), but more wild and aggressive and very flexible and athletic.
But Stallone said it eventually became an obsession, leading him to develop bulimia while filming. Rocky III.
“Then it became an obsession. Really bad. It got to the point where I became bulimic. You heard it here for the first time. I went down to 2.6% body fat when I was doing Rocky III, and I couldn’t remember anything. Or I didn’t want to keep it because I became so obsessed with staying at this stage of fitness, literally a kind of obsessive body worship. And no one does it without additives or drugs, period. I don’t care what they say.
When asked if he took steroids to improve his physique, Stallone confirmed that was the case.
“Oh, my God, you have to do it. But you do it in a sensitive way – six weeks on, six weeks off. People say, ‘Oh, you don’t get this naturally.’ No, that’s not the case. But it also had terrible consequences,” he said.
Stallone said his relationship with his physique began to change when he took on a different type of role in the 1997 film. Land of cop.
“It wasn’t until I did Land of cop, “When I had to play the weakest guy in the room – partially deaf, overweight – I felt somewhat liberated,” Stallone said. “Then things went wrong and I fell out of favor with Hollywood. But yeah, I abused my body. I’ve had nine back surgeries, two shoulder surgeries, three neck fusions. It’s all held together with wire, but I still want to stay in shape.”
Looking back, Stallone said he no longer views his physique as the armor it once was and wishes he had treated his body differently.
“If I had to do it again, I’d say, ‘Let someone else carry the banner and don’t do your own stunts,'” he said. “I don’t know what it felt like to hurt myself all the time.”
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