A raw, revealing interview with an 80-year-old Sylvester Stallone on the occasion of his new memoir, The Steps. I listened to about half of this and had to stop…it’s incredibly candid but what he went through as a kid & young adult, oof.
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Comments 3
Stallone is a prominent (if cagey) Trump supporter. It doesn't sound like he's connected the dots between the "perverse and weird and dark" toughness he observed and endured from his father and Trump's bullying, tough-guy persona (and general tough-guy-ism of American conservatism). If Trump listened to this interview, he'd probably laugh and call Stallone weak for expressing his feelings like this. Perhaps a lifetime is not actually enough time for the son to fully exorcise the sins of the father from his character.
I thought the therapy comment was interesting - "It just wouldn't work." I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here, but it sounded like it was coming from a place of surrender rather than "I'm above this" because someone entirely above it wouldn't even go there. Watching this reminded me of this clip from The Night Manager Season 2. "My father loved me. What about yours?"
Stallone is such a complicated figure. I don’t know of any other actor (maybe Nicholas Cage?) where you just don’t know which version you’re paying to see movie to movie. So introspective yet so mercenary
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