Anthony Ippolito had to do far more than nail Sylvester Stallone’s signature voice to play him in “I Play Rocky.” He also had to transform his skinny physique into one with bulging muscles — and, as he joked at the film’s AFI Fest screening in Los Angeles on Saturday, win over a four-legged co-star who was not exactly his biggest fan.
Anthony Ippolito I Play Rocky Sylvester Stallone transformation took over his life for months. “It had its moments for sure. I was being tested,” Ippolito said at the AFI Fest screening. “It’s like a consistency thing, though. I had a great deal of time, so just an entire lifestyle shift and it was just one of the priorities of every day for a pretty long period.”
Anthony Ippolito as Sylvester Stallone (Credits: Amazon/MGM)
Anthony Ippolito on Becoming Sylvester Stallone in I Play Rocky
Playing Stallone is a uniquely difficult assignment. Audiences do not just know his voice and his walk — they know Rocky Balboa, the character Stallone wrote for himself, almost as well as they know Stallone himself. Ippolito therefore had to capture two people at once: the young, struggling actor-writer trying to get Rocky made, and the icon he would become.
The physical side of that transformation was the most visible part of the job. Stallone’s Rocky physique is one of the most famous bodies in film history, built through relentless training and discipline. For Ippolito, who describes himself as naturally skinny, getting there meant rebuilding his daily routine around training and diet for a long period, with consistency mattering more than any single workout.
That kind of lifestyle shift is familiar to actors taking on real-life icons, but it carries its own pressure: the audience will compare every frame to the original. Ippolito’s account of being “tested” by the process suggests a shoot where the physical work never really stopped, even when the cameras did.
I Play Rocky Dog Co-Star Was Not a Huge Fan
Then there was the dog. Acting opposite animals is famously unpredictable, and Ippolito’s wry note that his canine co-star “wasn’t a huge fan of me” will be familiar to any actor who has tried to win over a scene partner more interested in treats than in takes.
It is also a fitting detail for a film about Rocky. The original 1976 classic is, at its heart, a story about an underdog — and about the people, and animals, around him. That Ippolito’s toughest critic on set may have had four legs only adds to the charm of the behind-the-scenes story.
“I Play Rocky” arrives with built-in curiosity: how do you dramatise the making of one of cinema’s great underdog stories, and who could possibly play the man who lived it? If Ippolito’s AFI Fest appearance is anything to go by, the answer involved months of training, a total lifestyle overhaul, a Stallone voice — and at least one dog who remained unconvinced.
Source: Variety — read the full story there.
