A lot of guys have muscles. A lot of strong men in this world. I think it’s important to show that even under all this strength there’s a fragile side, a side that can be affected.
Action is always seen as the bottom rung of thespian endeavour, that’s just the way it is.
All art, in this business, is a matter of compromise. It’s not one man’s vision unless he takes very weak actors.
Being ignorant is like getting dressed for Prom Night in the dark. You think you are looking good until somebody turns your lights on.
Doing ‘The Expendables’ was brutal; no time, no rest and more difficult then the last three Rambos put together.
Don’t be gullible, use life before it uses you. Understand there are no free lunches, and for every action you take, there’s a reaction.
For every guy, there is an opportunity to be a lot better than he thought he could be. We can’t all be the star of the team, but we can be a star in our life. That’s where you set your goal.
From the time I got dressed in the back of a deflated, flat-tired, fish-smelling station wagon for Rocky. It’s always been do it yourself, kind of like paper-clip it together.
Halloween is the only time people can become what they want to be without getting fired.
I abused my body so much throughout my career that I am literally held together by glue. The stuff I took thickens the bones and reinforces the tendons.
I am a sensitive writer, actor and director. Talking business disgusts me. If you want to talk business, call my disgusting personal manager.
I am under pressure to perform. If I didn’t have this goal I would be more than happy to throw 25 croissants down my throat and wash it down with a pint of beer, trust me. It is very, very hard to stay in shape.
I believe there’s an inner power that makes winners or losers. And the winners are the ones who really listen to the truth of their hearts.
I could start a war in 30 seconds. But some countries spend 100 years trying to find peace. Just like good manners, peace has to be learned.
I enjoy comedy very much, but it just wasn’t right for me. Sometimes it’s better to just stay focused and do what you’re really passionate about.
I had no idea Ellen Barkin was in the restaurant. If she was coughing or dying, she was doing it politely. I would have been more than happy to reach down her throat or squeeze her hard. Sat there dumbfounded? Please! I would have rallied round – just to avoid paying the bill.
I have a lack of fear, whereas in the past the fear of failure was a powerful motivator. Anyway, I have great expectations for the future, but I just don’t know if I’m the monarch of all I survey.
I have become more cynical as I have got older. Everything you were promised as a young person, it doesn’t really come true.
I have great expectations for the future, because the past was highly overrated.
I have tons of regrets, but I think that’s one of the reasons that push people to create things. Out of their angst, their regret, comes the best from artists, painters and writers.
I have two lovely sons and some good memories, but I’ve had a rather tumultuous personal life. It hasn’t been dull; I’ve been the Hiroshima of love.
I like a good adversary. It makes you lose sleep and want to get up on the morning and go to the gym.
I love being verbal in films.
I loved ‘Rocky’ and ‘Rambo’, and am very proud of them.
I made some truly awful movies. ‘Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot’ was the worst. If you ever want someone to confess to murder just make him or her sit through that film. They will confess to anything after 15 minutes.
I never had extraordinary genes or great bone structure, and I’m still very thin. What I try to do is create a body that every man can look at and say, ‘You know, with a certain amount of dedication I can achieve the same thing.’ I try to keep it in the realm of athletic, rather than unapproachable.
I never quite understood these actors – though I envy them sometimes – who can lie out for a year or two. I feel as though time is a real pressing issue, and I want to get as much work done in the time that I have left.
I really am a manifestation of my own fantasy.
I respect a woman too much to marry her.
I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.
I tend to think of action movies as exuberant morality plays in which good triumphs over evil.
I think audiences have hit the wall with CGI and special effects. They have seen so many over-the-top events that they can’t suspend disbelief.
I think everyone has a certain kind of formula in their life. When you deviate from that formula, you’re going to fail big or you’re gonna win big.
I think that gravity sets into everything, including careers, but pendulums do swing and mountains do become valleys after a while… if you keep on walking.
I think that’s become passe, but if you can surround yourself with a kind of monument to yourself and your family – a statement – and you can afford it, then that’s a noble project.
I think the people who have been so supportive and loyal will be happy with the final chapter in Rocky Balboa’s life because I think we bring the character to a final and noble conclusion.
I was an ambitious child and I tended to be scatterbrained. If I was at school and saw a bird outside the window I wanted to follow it. I was adventurous.
I was an insecure kid. Once I saw ‘Hercules’ with Steve Reeves, it completely changed my life. If I had never gone to that film, I wouldn’t be here today.
I was on cruise control from ’85 to ’95, and it was my fault. There were a lot of self-inflicted wounds, when I was not doing any original material. I wasn’t directing. I wasn’t writing. That’s not who I am.
I was very much into buying contemporary art, but I’ve just decided I want to get rid of it all. Not that it’s not great art, but all of a sudden my mood has changed, and I want to go back to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century masters.
I’d say between 3 pm and 8 pm I look great. After that it’s all downhill. Don’t photograph me in the morning or you’re gonna get Walter Brennan.
If bad decorating was a hanging offense, there’d be bodies hanging from every tree!
If politicians really told the truth they’d be fired and Washington would be an overgrown parking lot. Sad but true.
If you don’t have a mountain, build one and then climb it. And after you climb it, build another one; otherwise you start to flatline in your life.
I’ll just go on playing Rambo and Rocky. Both are money-making machines that can’t be switched off.
I’m a patriot of the heart.
I’m more focused and have a greater sense of challenge, because I constantly feel the weight of time.
I’m not a genetically superior person. I built my body.
I’m not handsome in the classical sense. The eyes droop, the mouth is crooked, the teeth aren’t straight, the voice sounds like a Mafioso pallbearer, but somehow it all works.
I’m not right wing, I’m not left wing. I love my country.
I’m often asked whether Rocky is an extension of myself. But the truth is I wish I could be as noble as Rocky. He never says a bad word about anyone, and he never complains. He’s lost 24 times, his record is 54 and 24, he’s lost a lot but he’s philosophical and knows there will be another day. I’m not that. I wish I were.
I’m pretty spiritual; I believe a lot in the spirit of man.
In a contest between me and a bulldog, you would say the bulldog is cuter.
It would be great to be able to pass on to someone all of the successes, the failures, and the knowledge that one has had. To help someone, avoid all the fire, pain and anxiety would be wonderful.
It’s been a fantastic revival of my life. As you know, my first marriage didn’t go so well, though I have a relationship with my sons, but this marriage has been a second beginning. I used to think my career was number one, so I was gone nine months out of a year, but I learned the hard way that the most important thing is that you start at home and then comes the career.
I’ve been involved in something which was chaotic and insane. All I can say now is that I am, and intend to stay, a single man.
I’ve kind of fashioned my life after a Slinky. Bend me in a million shapes, and eventually I’ll spring back to what I originally was.
I’ve made a lot of career mistakes – a lot! Sometimes you’re making a film and you go, ‘It’s a turkey and it’s not even Thanksgiving.’ It’s bad.
Like I said, I’ve got too much respect for women to marry them, but that doesn’t mean you can’t support them emotionally and financially.
Most action is based on redemption and revenge, and that’s a formula. Moby Dick was formula. It’s how you get to the conclusion that makes it interesting.
No one likes to fail at anything, but I believe I’m a better person for it. I learned life’s lessons. You’re given certain gifts and that’s what you should try to be.
Once is a man’s life, for one mortal moment, he must make a grab for immorality; if not, he has not lived.
People think retiring is fun. Well, maybe, but if you have a certain kind of fire inside, there is no end in sight.
Playing polo is like trying to play golf during an earthquake.
Rambo isn’t violent. I see Rambo as a philanthropist.
Regular artists borrow, geniuses steal.
‘Rocky’ represents the optimistic side of life, and ‘Rambo’ represents purgatory.
Success is usually the culmination of controlling failure.
Suddenly I’ve got an overwhelming desire to surround myself with the aura of classical and Romantic art.
That’s what Rocky is all about: pride, reputation, and not being another bum in the neighborhood.
The one thing in my films… I only kill people that need to be killed. Let me put it this way, the ones that deserve it get it and they get it good and the ones that go after women really get it, you know what I mean? Really get it.
The only happy artist is a dead artist, because only then you can’t change. After I die, I’ll probably come back as a paintbrush.
The trouble with remakes is that people fall in love with the original. It’s like peanut butter. If you try to change the taste of peanut butter, you’re in trouble.
There’s no one in the world close to Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is a phenomenon. He’s brilliant. Just because his physique belies that, don’t underestimate him.
What I’m trying to do now in my life – not just with the building, but with everything – is to construct things that will have enduring qualities, and won’t just be ephemeral flashes in the pan.
When I tried to branch out into comedy, I didn’t do very well at it, so I went back to doing what I do naturally well, or what the audience expects from me – action pictures.
When I tried to play characters that strayed from who I am it ended in disaster. People didn’t expect me in comedies or musicals.
When I was in junior high school, the teachers voted me the student most likely to end up in the electric chair.
When you’re an actor, you’re a slave to other people’s visions.
When you’re on top and you lead the parade, everyone’s there throwing lilies and lilac water on your head. But when those parades have gone by and there’s a storm in your heart, there are very few people that are going to sit there and listen to you bemoan life.
When you’re scared, when you’re hanging on, when life is hurting you, then you’re going to see what you’re really made of.
You have to be really loyal to the people that supported you when you were coming up.
You have to grab life by the throat and squeeze before it grabs you by your neck and breaks it. Own your destiny.
You’ve got to show your soul otherwise you’re just a piece of equipment.
