The Hollywood superstar tells the Mirror’s Clemmie Moodie how he now lives an unglamorous, grounded family life after being brought to his senses by his wife
Family guy: Sylvester Stallone and his wife and family at the The Expendables 3 UK film premiere in London (Image: WENN)
Think tough-talking, all-action Hollywood star and about four names probably spring to mind – Sylvester Stallone being one of them.
With a career spanning four decades, he has notched up a £270million fortune, a score of hit movies, two Oscar nominations and two biceps the size of watermelons.
And, at one time, an ego to match.
Now, the legend reveals that – after advice from his wife Jennifer Flavin and in a bid to stay more grounded – he has sacked his entire personal staff including chefs, drivers and security.
He says: “You’d be surprised how unglamorous, or normal, my life is. My cars get flat tyres, my dogs go to the bathroom on the carpet and my shower doesn’t always work.
“I try to walk, to be among people, so I’m not so isolated. And I don’t have security any more – I got rid of everyone.
“I had a lot of security and it was affecting me. I was becoming distant. They became the only people I would talk to and that’s not real, it’s not a real experience.
“If you’re paying them, they’re going to say what you want to hear. I realised as long as you have to pay people to be around you, then they’re not really your buddies.”
Sly says his ego went out of control “around 1984 to 1986”.
Iconic role: Sylvester Stallone in Rocky
He adds: “I had a lot of friends who were on the payroll and they became a kind of security blanket, they were my reality.
“There’s no question about it, I became introspective. But then you learn to rein it in and usually somebody, often a partner, tells you ‘Hey, calm down’.
“So Jennifer sat me down and told me to let them go and for me to deal with my demons and my successes on my own.”
Married three times, Sly has had five children: sons Sage – who died three years ago at 36 – and Seargeoh, 35, and girls Sophia, 18, Sistine, 16, and Scarlet, 12. Today he credits them with keeping his size 13s grounded.
As well as having a raft of non-famous friends, not to mention a few A-listers including ex-Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sly now enjoys holidays with only his family for company.
He says: “The ego thing is something everyone goes through. It happens because you think ‘Wow, I finally made it’.
Still got it: Sylvester Stallone in Expendables 2
“I’d been swimming upstream for so long and everyone said ‘You’re never going to make it’. So when you do, you get this sense of elation.
“But sometimes you deal with that a little too demonstrably.
“You buy a gold limo or a 50,000- square-foot house in Miami which I did once! You go a bit too far.
“Back then I’d bring my entire infrastructure with me on vacation. So you’re in a different location but bring with you the same people.
“Same cook, same security, same driver, same everything.
“I may as well have stayed at home. I realised I wasn’t learning or discovering any-thing new. Now, I like to have friends who are diametrically opposed to me.
“We talk about religion and politics and often they’re not on the same page as me, which makes for interesting conversation.
Action hero: Sylvester in Rambo First Blood Part II
“I also drive the kids to school which is not to their liking. I have to drop them off about two blocks away… either that or put a bag over my head.
“At home I’m just the nuisance with the loud voice. No one’s afraid of me. The girls know I’m a toothless tiger.
“I mean, I clean up after the Pomeranians every day. Does that put it in perspective?”
So what has been his most extravagant purchase?
He says: “I’ve bought tons of art but my biggest was when I bought a house in Miami in about 1996 or 1997 that was gigantic – it had belonged to one of the great industrialists, John Deere.
“But I’m just sitting in this giant, giant house and it’s just me and these billions of mosquitoes. It was so remote and I remember thinking ‘Why don’t I just go and buy a remote island off of Tahiti?’
“It was ridiculous, just me in this goofy 50,000 square feet of nonsense. But you learn from these things and I decided then to come back to LA.”
Bread head: Stallone is set to be the face of Warburtons’ new TV ad campaign (Image: Gary Salter)
Of course, 1997 being the year he married gorgeous Jennifer may have had something to do with it…
Chatting to Sylvester in his Yorkshire hotel suite – his fearsome female American publicist hovering just feet away – I am mesmerised by his flat face (the result of a forceps birth gone wrong), squashed nose and stacked body.
He could be 44. A 44-year-old gym obsessee. But then, from the man who wrote and starred in the Rocky movies, you would expect nothing less.
The rags-to-riches story of uneducated, working-class boxer Rocky Balboa isn’t that different from Sly’s own Hollywood experience.
At 24, the would-be star found himself briefly homeless and accepting bit-part roles, including one in a soft porn film.
His breakthrough came in 1975 after he watched the Muhammad Ali – Chuck Wepner fight. Inspired, he went home and wrote Rocky in less than two days.
He tried to sell the script to several studios but found only one who would accept him in the title role.
He finally accepted £200,000 for the rights on condition he played Rocky.
I am the law: Stallone as Judge Dredd (Image: Rex)
The movie cost just £1million to make and went on to gross over £130million. The rest, as they say, is history.
Now, of course, Sly can afford to be a little more experimental in his roles.
Which is why, perhaps, his latest has seen him in Yorkshire reprising his famous Rocky training scene and running up steps in an ad for Warburtons, the purveyors of white bread (and probably brown and wholemeal too).
It isn’t, after all, the most obvious fit. Or, in Sly’s words: “Me being aligned with bakery products – now that’s a stretch.”
Perhaps noticing the look of horror on his publicist’s face, he quickly adds: “But I do love them.”
Sly’s been an Everton fan ever since first visiting Goodison Park in 2007. But has he ever considered buying the club?
The star, who yesterday thanked City of London police for arresting a man suspected of pirating his latest movie The Expendables 3, said: “If I knew what I know now I’d have snapped it up.
“That was when football clubs were affordable but now it’s a billionaire’s game. I’d need to do one of these ads every day for the next 1,000 years…”
My blue heaven: Stallone filmed scenes for the new Rocky film Creed at Everton FC’s Goodison Park (Image: PA)
Anyway, back to Sly’s amazing physique.
Finding myself sort of caressing his right bicep – his publicist is ready to pounce until Sly saves her the bother and recoils all by himself – we discuss his workouts.
Back in the day, he and Arnie were at the forefront of the bench-pressing beefcake gang with their questionably large muscles and over-pronounced pecs.
He says: “We used to work so heavy it was called the iron game. The darker, more dismal, more painful the better. It was all bullcrap. We paid the price with injuries that never go away.
“Now we’re more intelligent and train with the rhythms of the body.”
