Sylvester Stallone is still laughing about the rivalry that once defined 1980s action cinema.
On Thursday's episode of The Rest Is Entertainment podcast, the Rocky and Rambo star looked back at his long-running feud with Arnold Schwarzenegger and called it "very contentious" -- then admitted he loved every minute of the sparring.
Stallone, 80, said he and Schwarzenegger, 79, were "antagonistic" from the start because both men wanted to own the action genre. He remembered realizing the Terminator star was "going to be a problem" after catching dirty looks at a Golden Globes gathering. At their next encounter, Stallone threw a bowl of flowers at him while pretending to celebrate.
"I made like I was celebrating, like, 'yay,'" he recalled. "And the gauntlet was thrown, and it was on."
As Rambo and Commando duked it out at the box office, the competition spilled off-screen. Stallone said the anger pushed both of them to escalate -- bigger knives, louder guns, higher body counts, flashier locations. "The madder I made him, the madder he made me, the more we fought to make the next action film," he said.
The chill was so deep that when the pair helped launch Planet Hollywood in 1991, they could barely share a stage for promotion. The thaw came years later, after Schwarzenegger entered California politics and won the governor's race in 2003. Stallone said they ran into each other at a cigar shop, buried the hatchet once they were no longer fighting for the same movie roles, and remain close friends.
"We're always going to be competitive," he added. "That's the nature of the beast and I enjoy it." He also argued the era was unique: two stars in the same lane going all-out on-screen and off.
The comments arrive as Stallone continues promoting season four of Tulsa King and speaking more openly about the physical cost of decades of stunt-heavy work. He recently told Fox News Digital that The Expendables left him with multiple back operations, neck fusions and torn shoulders -- injuries he now calls the price of breaking himself "in pieces" for the camera.
For fans who grew up on Rocky, Rambo and Commando posters side by side, Stallone's latest retelling is a reminder that Hollywood's loudest rivalry eventually turned into a cigar and a handshake.
Source: Page Six
