Updated

Updated · The Guardian · Oct 29

Anthony Ippolito Sparks Best Actor Oscar Buzz at 27 for Playing Stallone in I Play Rocky

Updated

Updated · The Guardian · Oct 29

Anthony Ippolito Sparks Best Actor Oscar Buzz at 27 for Playing Stallone in I Play Rocky

Q: What new side of Stallone’s Rocky gamble does I Play Rocky reveal beyond the legend fans already know?

It reveals that Stallone’s “bet on himself” was not just a famous contract standoff, but a much deeper, more precarious survival gamble shaped by poverty, family pressure and creative control. The legend most fans know is that Stallone refused lucrative offers for the Rocky script unless he could star in it himself. *I Play Rocky* adds the human cost behind that decision: he was broke, taking menial jobs and tiny acting parts, trying to support his wife, and writing from a place of real desperation. The film reportedly shows how close he was to collapse, including the kind of hardship that led him to sell his dog Butkus and write *Rocky* in just a few days after seeing Chuck Wepner go the distance with Muhammad Ali. It also broadens the gamble beyond casting. The movie emphasizes that Stallone was fighting to protect the story’s identity as much as his own role. He resisted not only being replaced by a bigger star, but also efforts that could have diluted the film’s underdog spirit, including battles over key material such as the “go the distance” philosophy that defined *Rocky*. In that sense, *I Play Rocky* reframes the myth: Stallone was not merely turning down money for ego or ambition. He was risking the only real shot he believed he had, because he saw *Rocky* as inseparable from his own life, voice and struggle.

3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Oct 29

27-year-old Anthony Ippolito has emerged as a best actor contender for I Play Rocky, a making-of drama in which he plays Sylvester Stallone during the years before Rocky.
Years of persistence helped land him the role: Ippolito kept sending unsolicited audition tapes, and director Peter Farrelly said he became the first and only serious choice once producers saw him.
His performance hinges on a full physical and vocal transformation — including a lower voice, altered posture and a bulking regimen — while avoiding caricature in portraying Stallone’s forceps-related speech and features.
Stallone has already given the portrayal his approval, and the film centers on the actor’s bleak pre-Rocky period, including financial desperation and his refusal to surrender the lead role for $300,000.
The awards talk extends Rocky’s underdog legacy into its 50th anniversary season, elevating Ippolito from little-known actor to a contender alongside bigger Hollywood names.