Sylvester Stallone is urging actors not to do their own stunts after learning the consequences the hard way.
In the latest season of his Paramount+ reality show “The Family Stallone,” the “Rocky” star, 77, opened up about injuries he has sustained on set as he prepared to undergo a seventh operation on his back.
“There’s something romantic about doing your own stunts,” he said in the show. “There’s something very unromantic about after doing your own stunts. Here we go ahead, it’s back operation season.”
Stallone admitted to doing “stupid stuff” on some of his movies, pointing especially to 2010’s “The Expendables.” He directed the action film in addition to starring in it and said he “never recovered” after he was injured shooting a fight sequence with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, during which he was slammed against a wall.
“After that film, I was literally physically never the same,” the actor shared. “So I warn people, don’t do your own stunts.”
Stallone’s wife, Jennifer Flavin, said in the episode that he “tries to mask the pain” because he “doesn’t like people to know he’s had so many surgeries,” but she shared it’s “very scary for our family every time Sly has to go through surgery, because you never know.” Stallone’s daughter Scarlet also said that it’s “really hard to see my dad go through yet another painful operation,” recalling that “my whole childhood, he was in pain.”
But the episode documented that Stallone was in high spirits after undergoing his latest operation. “I’m hoping this is the one to make him live a more comfortable life,” Flavin said.
Stallone previously revealed that he also broke two toes “in half” while filming 2006’s “Rocky Balboa.”
Stallone’s comments about on-set injuries come after Russell Crowe recently revealed he fractured both of his legs after performing one of his stunts on the 2010 movie “Robin Hood.” He said he continued shooting the movie and didn’t learn the extent of his injuries for another 10 years.
“Apparently I finished that movie with two broken legs,” Crowe told People magazine. “All for art. No cast, no splints, no painkillers, just kept going to work and over time they healed themselves.”