Sylvester Stallone’s aging physique

Sylvester Stallone is feeling his age, said Sean Macaulay in the London Daily Telegraph. At 64, the biggest action-hero star of the 1980s is the first to admit that his body doesn’t bounce back from the abuse he seems to suffer every time he makes a movie. While filming Rocky II, he suffered a near complete rupture of his right pectoral muscle and had to have it surgically reattached. “I had 160 stitches under my right arm. That’s why Rocky fights left-handed in that film, because I couldn’t use my right.” On Rocky IV, he was hospitalized for seven days after taking a massive punch to the chest that caused the tissue around his heart to swell.

But nothing compares to the comical list of injuries he received on the set of his latest action film, which he attributes to his age. “I injured both shoulders,” he says. “I had a ruptured rotator cuff that had to be surgically attached. I had both knees drained. Steve Austin [the wrestler] threw me against a wall and I got a hairline fracture in the spine.” The list goes on. Still, Stallone sees the tally of wounds as a good omen. “Whenever I don’t get injured, the film is a dud,” he says. “I didn’t bleed on Rhinestone. I didn’t bleed on Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. They hurt in other ways. Those ones hurt the soul.”

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up