People asked if I could have played the Terminator. Are you kidding? Not a chance, I never could have played the Terminator.
I try to tell people that just because you’re buff and cut doesn’t mean you’re healthy.
Usually whenever you’re scared of something, do it. If you’re not afraid of it, don’t do it.
Today’s action hero, his skills are through technology. He can fly, he can throw a bolt of lightning, he can freeze people.
There’ll never be a ‘Rocky IV.’ You gotta call a halt.
There aren’t a lot of opportunities for that rite of passage that makes you a man. War is one of them, and violent sports are another.
The one thing in my films, I only kill people who need to be killed, or killers killing killers. And I believe that the violence is very justifiable.
The body needs to rest. It needs a lot less exercise than you think.
Testosterone to me is so important for a sense of well-being when you get older.
Suddenly I’ve got an overwhelming desire to surround myself with the aura of classical and Romantic art.
Sometimes I write with music on, and if I’m in a good flow, I don’t even hear it.
I’ve done my “mind over matter” movies, and I think probably that people aren’t really interested in seeing me do that anymore. I think I’m kind of past my prime to do dramatic films. I think it’d become kind of like almost a pathetic cry out to be recognized as a serious drama actor.
People assume that ‘The Expendables’ is old school, but it’s only old school because that’s the way I know how to make an action film. It’s pretty real.
I wish my daughters would box. I’m so worried about the guys coming up to them. I would love them to be able to smack a guy right off a bar stool.
Once I stopped trying to always do everything my way, and once I asked for God’s help, things have truly gone a different direction.
Training and working in Philadelphia is a very unusual situation because that city does believe that Rocky is real. No one calls me Sylvester, it’s Rocky.
When you are young, you often think that the world spins around you. You think you can do anything, can take the world on your shoulders.
Some people maybe try to justify their laziness. You take out what you put in and the more I go to church and the more I turn myself over to the process of believing in Jesus, and to listening to his word and have him guide my hand I feel the pressure’s off me.
Making a movie is the same as an orchestra; it’s moving all the different instruments and the sounds, the kinetic and the auditory and the visual all together. I’m probably the trombone.
Lighting can bring out certain contours in the body, in the face, in the eyes, that otherwise flat lighting couldn’t.