Sylvester Stallone has laid bare the roots of his explosive rivalry with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The “Rocky” star, 80, told the “The Rest Is Entertainment” podcast in an episode released Thursday that the two action icons were “antagonistic” toward each other from their very first encounters. Their mutual ambition to dominate the action genre set them on a collision course that would define both careers for two decades.
Stallone recalled spotting trouble early when Schwarzenegger, 79, shot him dirty looks across the room at the Golden Globes. The tension crystallized at their next meeting, when Stallone seized the moment with theatrical aggression.
“I made like I was celebrating, like, ‘yay,'” he recounted on the podcast. “And the gauntlet was thrown, and it was on.”
The “Rambo” actor described Schwarzenegger as naturally antagonistic, noting that both men were physical personalities who thrived on confrontation. Their off-screen hostility fueled an arms race at the box office as they traded blockbuster hits like “Rambo” and “Commando.”
“It was very contentious, trust me, which I enjoyed,” Stallone emphasized. “Because the madder i made him, the madder he made me, the more we fought to make the next action film — bigger knife, louder gun, more body count, this and that, better location. It just kept elevating.”
Their competitiveness proved so corrosive that even business partnerships suffered. When the pair joined a group of celebrity founders to launch the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain in 1991, they could barely tolerate sharing a promotional stage. The mutual disdain ran deep enough to poison what should have been straightforward corporate appearances.
The feud finally ended only when Schwarzenegger pivoted to politics and launched his successful 2003 campaign for Governor of California. Stallone ran into his former nemesis at a cigar shop around that time, and the two finally buried the hatchet. With Schwarzenegger no longer competing in the movie business, the old grievances lost their edge.
They shared a cigar that day, and Stallone said they remain very good friends to this day. The competitive instinct still lingers, though its financial dimension has faded.
“We’re always going to be competitive,” he observed. “That’s the nature of the beast and I enjoy it.”
He added, “We’re not as financially competitive anymore … that’s long gone.”
Stallone reflected on the unique intensity of their rivalry with a note of historical finality: “It’s something that’ll never happen again, where you have two actors in the same genre, literally going for it – on-screen, off-screen.”
The podcast appearance also touched on the physical consequences of Stallone’s stunt-heavy career. Speaking separately with Fox News Digital while promoting the fourth season of “Tulsa King,” he detailed the damage inflicted during the making of 2010’s “The Expendables.”
“I have been injured many, many times, but after ‘Expendables,’ I ended up with nine back operations, three neck fusions. Both shoulders ripped out. It’s been brutal,” he said.
The actor did not romanticize the sacrifice. “I think I’m an idiot for doing that,” he admitted, of his long history of performing his own stunts. “I’m proud that I broke myself in pieces? Like, duh, no.”
