Sylvester Stallone: 'I'm not dead yet!'

Sylvester Stallone has “mixed” feelings about biopic I Play Rocky, mainly down to the fact he’s “not dead yet”.

The new film tells the story of Stallone's efforts to bring his boxing movie Rocky to the big screen in the 1970s, with Anthony Ippolito playing the actor.

While it was previously claimed that Sylvester “liked” the film, the screen star set the record straight during an interview at The 92NY in New York to promote his memoir The Steps.

Responding to the interviewer asking what he thought of I Play Rocky, Sylvester said: “Kind of mixed because I’m going, ‘I’m not dead yet. Aren’t we jumping the gun a little bit?’”

However, when he saw a clip of Ippolito in character as him, Sylvester was left stunned by the incredible likeness.

He added: “I actually thought it was me the first moment; there were a couple of angles. I go to my daughter and say, ‘That’s unbelievable.’”

Sylvester also offered his support to Ippolito, as he said he would answer “any questions” he had, although stressed that he had “nothing to do” with the film.

He continued: “I said, ‘I’ll just sit back and watch.’ I talked to the kid. I said, ‘If you want any questions, here I am,’ and that was it. But they did it all on their own.”

Of meeting Sylvester, Ippolito previously told The Hollywood Reporter: “ I got to speak to Stallone prior to making the movie. It was a lot to take in because I’d spent over a year, by that point, studying him.

"It was very overwhelming and daunting. There’s a lot going on in my head, but I was really just trying to listen as much as possible and hear his perspective.”

I Play Rocky is already being tipped as an Oscar contender ahead of the 2027 Academy Awards.

If the film lands nominations, it would follow in the footsteps of Rocky, which landed 10 nods and won three Oscars including the coveted Best Picture prize in 1977.