Sylvester Stallone said his action movie competition with Arnold Schwarzenegger rose to such a level that at one point, he actually wanted to “strangle” him.
“Did you ever have someone you wanted to strangle every day? It got to the point where we stopped talking to each other and couldn’t be in the same room,” Mr. Stallone said, the New York Post reported. “We came along at the same time, we started to pioneer this acting thing — although I was first — and we were so competitive.”
Mr. Stallone also recounted how Mr. Schwarzenegger tricked him into taking the lead role in the comedy flop, “Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot,” by putting out the word that he was actually going for the role.
“I heard Arnold wanted to do that movie,” Mr. Stallone told the New York Post, “and after hearing that, I said I wanted to do it. He tricked me. He’s always been clever.”
That movie actually ended up making a round of “worst movie” lists and was called in 1992 by critic Roger Ebert as “so dimwitted, so utterly lacking in even the smallest morsel of redeeming value, that you stare at the screen in stunned disbelief.”
The two have since become good friends and are co-stars in the “The Expendables 3.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.