Sylvester Stallone, save for the gutsy way that he landed his breakthrough role of Rocky Balboa, has made a career of playing it safe. Once he hit upon a winning combination with the boxing film series, he followed the natural evolution from pugilist to action films.
And whenever things got too skimpy at the box office for him, he always returned to one of his two major characters — the aforementioned Balboa and John Rambo from First Blood .
He even decided against following his buddy Arnold Schwarzenegger into politics for that very reason, according to recent comments reported by Variety .
After the mayor of Philadelphia once told him that he believed he “could be elected,” Sylvester Stallone admitted that he thought about it, “[a]nd five minutes later, I came to my senses.”
“I said to my wife, ‘What do you think?’” Stallone said. “She said, ‘Are you crazy? He’s just being nice. You’re not going to be elected. You don’t have that insatiable need to be embraced by people.’”
Perhaps to hammer home that point, Sly then issued comments about current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump that are sure to have some of his Hollywood friends up in arms.
“I love Donald Trump,” he said. “He’s a great Dickensian character. You know what I mean? There are certain people like Arnold, Babe Ruth, that are bigger than life.”
That said, the Creed star admitted, “I don’t know how that translates to running the world.”
With that last line, maybe Sylvester Stallone was playing it safe again.
He did not give Trump an outright endorsement, but “love” is a pretty strong word, and comparing him to others like his friend Schwarzenegger and perhaps the most famous Major League Baseball player of all time is far from insulting.
Still, by saying that he didn’t know how that would “translate” into running the world, Sly was perhaps veiling some reservations.
However, as Variety points out, Sylvester Stallone did endorse John McCain in the 2008 general election. But that doesn’t mean he’s a Republican, he was quick to point out.
“May the best fighter win,” Stallone said, summing up his political outlook. “I don’t think you can be totally one-sided forever. Then you close your mind to all sorts of possibilities. It’s just, ‘Who comes along better at that time for what the planet is going through?’ Right now, it’s pretty confusing on every side.”
For his part, the usually boastful Donald Trump has yet to seize on the comments of Sylvester Stallone and pass them off as an endorsement.
This is a practice he has resorted to in the past with everyone from primary opponent Jeb Bush to husband of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, the former President Bill Clinton himself.
With most of Hollywood leaning to the political left, Sylvester Stallone saying anything affectionate about Donald Trump at all could be a huge risk going into Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards ceremony.
He has been nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his seventh turn as Rocky Balboa in the sorta-surprise hit Creed .
In the film, Sly plays a different version of the character than what most of his fans are used to seeing. While the heavily muscled Balboa usually ends up in a climactic bout facing an against-the-odds opponent, he passed that role off to star Michael B. Jordan, and instead of having his usual heavily muscled physique, he underwent a shocking metamorphosis to show Rocky with a potentially fatal illness.
Some have considered him to be a frontrunner for the Golden Globe and a dark horse candidate for his second career Oscar nomination.
As for the Donald Trump comments, do you think that will affect the chances of Sylvester Stallone winning one way or the other?
[Image via Tinseltown / Shutterstock.com ]
