Before he was a two-timer World heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Balboahe was just small Sylvester “Sly” Stallone with an unusually deep voice.
His voice and slurred speech were the result of an injury during childbirth, which also caused facial drooping, a condition for which he was mercilessly bullied. And life at home wasn't much easier. When his parents divorced in 1957, when he was 11, he moved in with his father, who he said was emotionally and physically abusive.
“It’s hard to navigate because you can catch it, especially when you’re a bit rebellious like me. You will be beaten. After a while, you learn to just expect it,” Stallone told “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King during an interview at his Florida home.
He found solace on the silver screen.
“I worshiped escapism,” Stallone explained, especially mythical heroes such as Hercules.
Stallone's “thorny” path to success
In his early 20s, he moved to New York to pursue his dream of learning to write after struggling as a young actor. In 1975, he wrote the film that changed everything: Rocky.
At the time, the studio didn't want Stallone to star in his own film, but he insisted. It was a gamble that paid off: Rocky won three Oscars, including Best Picture. What should have been one of the happiest nights of his life turned out to be one of the saddest at the same time.
“I mean, it's a volcanic moment, and it was very sad at the time,” Stallone said, choking up.
Stallone's parents were not present as his guests at the Oscars when he was nominated for the award in 1977.
“You want the people you love to turn you down, now you're here, you're at the Oscars and they don't want to go,” he continued. “At that moment you realize that you will never come to terms with this. And the question arises: what else do you need? Really, what else do you need to do to say, “I’m here?”
For Stallone, this was a valuable lesson.
“Parents need to really wise up. Children are like soft clay. They really are. You mold them, you put dents in them, you hurt them or you drop them off the table and they are no longer the same shape,” he said. “I still go with him. And I wish I couldn't. And I pray and I do everything, but it’s always there.”
Stallone, who was recently named 2025 Kennedy Center Honoreehopes his story can help inspire others to follow their dreams, no matter what.
He told King about his hopes for his legacy: “I really want to be a symbol of how an ordinary person, a truly ordinary person, can overcome enormous odds.”
Stallone clears up the story of his cinematic origins
Although Rocky is often described as a sports drama, Stallone disagrees and wants to set the record straight.
“The hardest thing about Rocky, and even to this day I get angry when I hear it’s a sports movie. This is wrong. This is a love story,” he said. “It all starts with love.”
According to Stallone, the real triumph of “Rocky” is the developing love between Rocky and Adrian, played by Talia Shire. The film, he said, “will be based on love, not fights.”
From commercial successes to comeback hits
Following the success of Rocky, Stallone co-wrote and starred in another blockbuster, Rambo. He played John Rambo, whom he calls his alter ego.
“He’s my father,” he explained. “100%. That's all I had to do was clone him, but the difference is that Rambo is sad. Rambo is a powerless child, he was America's child. And America asked him to do chores, he did the work, and he was—she rejected him.”
After two successful franchises early in his career, he suffered a series of box office failures.
“It was more than just a drought. It was about eight years of cobwebs on the phone,” he recalls, admitting that it was “crushing” at the time.
Everything changed when Rocky Balboa returned in 2006. And then the work continued. He is currently filming the fourth season of his hit show. Paramount+ show “King of Tulsa.”
