Peter Farrelly knew Sylvester Stallone had approved the idea behind I Play Rocky. Waiting to hear what Stallone thought after actually watching someone else play him was a different experience.
Stallone screened the finished film alone at his house before its Toronto International Film Festival premiere. Farrelly admitted that made him nervous because the movie had been built to play with an audience, but the wait did not last long. “He loved it,” the director told Entertainment Weekly, adding that Stallone called him immediately afterward.
Anthony Ippolito had his own nerves to manage. The 27-year-old actor spent roughly a year and a half preparing to play a young Stallone and spoke with him before filming, trying to absorb whatever Stallone was willing to share about the period of his life the movie recreates.
Ippolito separately said Stallone and wife Jennifer Flavin had seen the finished movie and were enthusiastic about it. Their approval arrived just as I Play Rocky was beginning its public life at TIFF, almost 50 years after the original Rocky reached theaters.
Stallone Called Farrelly as Soon as the Movie Ended
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Farrelly had already made Stallone’s support a condition of taking the directing job. When producer Toby Emmerich brought him Peter Gamble’s screenplay, Farrelly said he wanted Stallone to read it before he committed. He then sat down with Stallone and told him directly that he would not make the movie unless Stallone wanted it made.
Stallone gave him the go-ahead. Months later, after watching the completed film on his own, he called Farrelly with the reaction the director had been waiting for. Stallone had also publicly backed the project earlier in the summer, congratulating the cast and crew on Instagram and telling them to “keep punching.”
Ippolito Spent a Year and a Half Becoming Stallone
Ippolito’s preparation started long before his first day on set. He told PEOPLE that he trained for about a year and a half, with more than the first year spent largely working alone before trainers Grant Roberts and Kirk Myers joined him for roughly the final five months.
The physical work was only one piece of it. Ippolito had already spent considerable time studying Stallone when the two finally spoke, which made the conversation intimidating despite Stallone quickly putting him at ease.
Ippolito said Stallone was generous with what he shared. He later said Stallone and Flavin had seen the movie and were “really big fans” of it, giving Ippolito the real-life reaction he had been anxious to hear.
The Movie Focuses on the Fight Before ‘Rocky’ Was Made
I Play Rocky covers the years when he was still struggling to establish himself and wrote the screenplay that would become his breakthrough.
The central conflict is the condition Stallone attached to selling that script, he wanted to play Rocky Balboa himself. The new movie turns that standoff into its own underdog story, with Ippolito playing Stallone, Stephan James playing Carl Weathers, AnnaSophia Robb as Sasha Czack and Jay Duplass as Rocky director John G. Avildsen.
The gamble led to considerably more than one acting job. The original Rocky earned 10 Oscar nominations across nine categories and won three, including Best Picture, Best Director for Avildsen and Film Editing. Stallone himself was nominated for both his lead performance and screenplay, according to the Academy’s records.
Toronto Gave the Film the Crowd Reaction Farrelly Had Been Missing
I Play Rocky made its world premiere at TIFF’s Princess of Wales Theatre on September 12, where the audience gave the movie an enthusiastic reception and jumped to its feet to applaud afterward, according to The Associated Press.
His casting had its own underdog element, before Farrelly had even begun the full casting search, Ippolito recorded audition material while performing scenes in his grandmother’s basement and sent it in.
“I looked at it and the search was over,” Farrelly later told the AP. “That’s the guy. We didn’t have to go any further.” Amazon MGM Studios will put I Play Rocky into select theaters on November 6 before expanding it nationwide on November 20.