10 Movie Actors Who Only Played By Their Own Rules
3. Sylvester Stallone - Refusing To Make Rocky Unless He Was Cast As The Lead
Long before he was the household name millions know and love today, Sylvester Stallone was a little known actor doing whatever he could to get by.
Then in the mid-'70s, Sly was inspired by a Mohammed Ali fight against Chuck Wepner and set about writing a script for the film which would eventually become Rocky. He finished the screenplay in three-and-a-half days before deciding to take it to various movie studios in an attempt to sell the script. However, when the virtually unknown actor was offered $350,000 for the rights by film producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, Sly insisted on starring in his passion project and the offer was soon taken off the table.
Despite having to sell his dog so that he could afford to feed his family at the time, Stallone completely bet on himself and insisted on only making the movie on his own terms, with him as the lead.
In the end, Winkler and Chartoff agreed to let him take the role of Rocky Balboa in the flick. But the budget was massively cut due to him not being as big a draw as names like Robert Redford and Burt Reynolds.
As we now all know, the gamble paid off. Stallone was even able to get his dog back further down the line, after first agreeing to put the person who bought the animal off him in the original movie.