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Nearly 50 years ago, a young Sylvester Stallone jogged through Philadelphia’s Italian Market in a gray sweatsuit and caught an orange tossed his way by a produce vendor. On Nov. 2, the famous stretch of South Ninth Street welcomed a different kind of “Rocky” reunion, this time with the people behind a new movie about how the Philadelphia classic came to be.
“I Play Rocky,” opening in select theaters Nov. 6, tells the story behind the 1976 film that made Stallone a household name and gave Philadelphia one of its most enduring cultural symbols. Before Rocky Balboa could climb the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps, Stallone was a struggling actor trying to convince Hollywood to take a chance on his screenplay. Studios were interested in the script, but not necessarily in its unknown writer playing the lead. Stallone refused to give up the role, even as financial pressures mounted.
Directed by Peter Farrelly, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker behind “Green Book” and comedies like “Dumb and Dumber,” the new film follows Stallone’s unlikely journey from aspiring actor to movie star. Anthony Ippolito, who previously portrayed a young Al Pacino in “The Offer,” takes on Stallone and earned early Oscar buzz for a transformative performance. AnnaSophia Robb, known for “Bridge to Terabithia” and “The Carrie Diaries,” plays Sasha Czack, Stallone’s first wife, who supported him through the original film’s production.
The original “Rocky” turns 50 this month, having gone from a relatively modest production to a best picture Oscar winner and eventually a franchise recognized around the world. In Philadelphia, its legacy remains particularly visible. Tourists still run up the Art Museum steps and through the Italian Market streets where Stallone once filmed. But “I Play Rocky” looks at the less glamorous period before that success, when the movie’s future was far from certain.
Billy Penn sat down with Farrelly, Ippolito and Robb in the Italian Market ahead of the film’s release to discuss bringing that story back to the screen, portraying real people and revisiting a piece of movie history that Philadelphia has never quite let go of.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Billy Penn: We’re in Philly now, in the Italian Market, where Stallone ran in the original movie. Was there a moment during filming when you started to feel the same connection with Philadelphia that the city shares with “Rocky”?
Peter Farrelly: I mean, when we got to his apartment, outside his apartment that night, you could feel the ghosts of “Rocky” there. It was the energy. It looked the same. I was thinking, how come this isn’t a museum here? But yeah, you can feel it everywhere you go in Philadelphia. I don’t know if there’s another movie that’s so closely associated with the city.
AnnaSophia Robb: When we filmed on the steps, it was like a pinch-me moment. P.J. Byrne and I ran up the steps, and I felt so triumphant. We had the real inventor of the Steadicam, Garrett Brown, actually there. It was a pinch-me moment for sure. A pinch-me day.
Anthony Ippolito: I felt it a little bit at that bridge, when we were running through that bridge. It was the first location that we shot here, and I distinctly remember, because you can see the movie when you’re standing in that shot. It’s pretty remarkable.
PF: We were setting up with the exact same angle as he’s running through there.
AI: Right, so you can really see it.
PF: Yeah, you could feel it. When we were on those steps, it was like a spiritual kind of thing, feeling it. And I felt it outside of the apartment, too.
ASR: And some of the neighbors are still there.
BP: Did you talk to them?
ASR: We could hear them.
AI: They would say, like, “Yo, Adrian!” All sorts of stuff.
PF: They were talking. They were like, “Yeah, this brings back memories, 50 years ago.” I was like, “What? You’ve been here 50 years?”
BP: Anthony, Timothée Chalamet, who played Bob Dylan, talked about a performance he watched where Dylan was playing with Joan Baez. Dylan wasn’t really making eye contact, but he was still looking at her, and Chalamet said that unlocked the character for him. Was there anything you watched that helped everything click for you?
AI: Some of the footage is from when he was trying to break through in the industry. He did an episode of “Kojak,” and there are a lot of really great moments in that.
Also, “Paradise Alley,” which he actually made a couple of years after “Rocky’s” success. Funny enough, that was the script that got him in the room and got Winkler and Chartoff to take him seriously as a writer. He ended up making it a couple of years later.
And there’s a lot of fun stuff in there. There’s even a moment where he’s hitting on a girl walking down the street. And so that was kind of an eye-opening moment for a little bit of the interaction with Sasha.
BP: AnnaSophia, there’s not quite as much written about Sasha as there is about Stallone. What did you do to prepare for the character, and how did you draw the line between interpretation and putting your own spin on it?
ASR: I reached out. She’s a very private person, and I want to be fully respectful of that. It was 50 years ago. It was a long time.
And there’s “The Official Rocky Scrapbook,” which Sly wrote, and many of the photos are Sasha’s photos that Sasha took while on set because she was a photographer. She went to art school.
So I used that as her. It’s like we see what she sees. And so I used a camera while we were shooting, taking photos. It was a really grounding experience for me because I didn’t feel like an actor. I just felt like a crew member, and I had a physical job to do.
And then Sly wrote this really beautiful note, and he sent it to our producer, Toby Emmerich, and he described their marriage as two rocks leaning against each other and described her as sunshine.
And so I used those visuals to sort of embed her within myself. And then I based a lot of the character off of my husband.
I just think this movie, I hope people will get so much from it. It’s about betting on yourself. It’s about how many people it takes to make a dream a reality. But it’s also a love story, just like “Rocky.” It’s about a marriage and about two people who believe in each other. How do you get through life as a good partner?
PF: I was going to jump on top of that and say this is a love story, and Sasha is the heart of the movie and kind of the most important part for him. Otherwise, this doesn’t all happen.
And yet, when we were showing the movie to Sylvester Stallone, he’d been remarried for over 30 years. That concerned me, that we were going to show him a movie in a theater, but he said he wanted to watch it at home with his wife. It’s not the same wife that’s in the movie.
I didn’t like this because I knew if you saw it in a crowd, you’d feel the energy. But sitting home alone, who knows what could happen?
But he insisted, and he watched it and called right after. He said he loved it, and he said that his wife cried the whole time.
And I was just thinking, wow, that’s a good wife, and she didn’t let her ego get in the way of it. She saw it from a whole different point of view. Thank God she’s strong enough mentally to watch that and see it from his perspective and not hers.
BP: Mr. Farrelly, this movie could easily have been a victory lap, glorifying the original film and its characters. But I think it stays grounded. Why take that approach, and how did you manage to do so?
PF: Well, the script was written by Peter Gamble, and the guy wrote an amazing script. One reason he wrote such a good script is because Peter Gamble relates to this. He’s almost 50 years old. This is his first movie. And he’s been writing for 30 years.
He’s done rewrites. He’s done ghostwriting for projects. He ghostwrote a project that got Academy Award nominations, but nobody ever mentioned him.
He was never seen.
And when he heard about Stallone trying to be seen, he came in and just captured that thing.
Here’s another thing that I always look for in a movie: I want you to like our characters. And if you like our characters, then we can have a lot more fun.
And this guy is instantly lovable from the moment the movie opens, when he’s reading for a part and he has a lisp. You can hear the people making fun of him in the room, and he hears them and walks out of there. He doesn’t punch a wall like he might have. He goes home and works on his lisp. He turns on his tape recorder and starts reading poetry.
I love that guy.
I love a guy who’s trying to better himself and not complaining about his situation.
BP: Anthony, there are so many iconic scenes in “Rocky,” but was there one you really wanted to get down, one you felt you just had to nail?
AI: A lot of the stuff, actually. Not to spoil anything, but at the end, the boxing stuff, Stephan [James] and I worked at Gleason’s Gym with this boxing trainer, Bobby Beckles. We went through every beat of those fight scenes because it’s also important to go over, because Stallone choreographed that fight.
And so just trying to capture what made those moments special was really important. But I mean, so much of it.
There were a lot of different tests with these recreations. A lot of it was very physical.
BP: You met Stallone after doing your research. Was there anything you took away from actually talking to him that you hadn’t learned before?
AI: Yeah, well, it’s one thing to do the research independently, but there’s nothing like being able to hear directly from him what those experiences were when he was down and out and in a really difficult, dark, lonely place.
It was a very, very vulnerable thing to have him explain those sorts of moments. And it really gave something to it that I couldn’t have found elsewhere.
PF: And just having his blessing was great for me and for all of us, to know that he’s behind this. That helped a lot.
For instance, I had asked a question like, “Are we being too hard on your dad in the movie?” And he said, “No, you’re being easy on my dad. My dad was a tough guy. He was a lot tougher than that.”
And he read the script and said, “Go forward, just do it.”
He wasn’t involved, but he blessed it.
And his one request was, he said, “I think it’d be smart to hire a relatively unknown actor, because that’s what I was.”
That was part of the charm.
That’s why, if it was Ryan O’Neal or Burt Reynolds, I still believe it would have been a good movie, but it wouldn’t have been the “Rocky” we know today, because we met Stallone in that movie and fell in love with him. It was a whole different experience.
BP: Ahead of the film’s release this weekend, how are you all feeling? There’s a scene in the movie where Stallone can’t stand to be in the theater as it plays because he’s too nervous. Are you feeling that way?
PF: You know, I love this movie, and I knew it was going to be good because of the script and because we got these actors.
But there’s always a little nervousness when a movie comes out. You can’t control that kind of stuff.
Like, “Kingpin” came out and bombed. It didn’t do anything.
And it hurt.
But today, everybody’s seen it, and it feels good.
And I know this movie is — I’m nervous about it, but I also know it’s a good movie.
AI: It’s a lot of excitement, I think, especially being in Philly. People who are fans of “Rocky,” the original film, the character, the whole franchise. There are so many passionate people who have a very intimate relationship with the character and this whole story.
So to be able to provide something that illuminates it in a different way, or maybe acts as a bridge to the originals for even younger audiences, there are a lot of really amazing things about that, too.
ASR: You can’t control what happens. I think when I saw it for the first time, I was just so proud of the film and everybody’s work in it.
There’s not one dull note.
Every time a new person comes on screen, it lights up, it re-energizes. Rick Montgomery, the casting director, just absolutely — even the small — I can’t remember his name, but he plays the boxing coach.
PF: Trevor St. John.
ASR: Trevor St. John!
He’s excellent. So who knows what’s going to happen?
You never know what’s going to happen in a movie, but I had a fabulous time working on it, and I’m so proud of everybody’s work on it, actors and crew.
PF: Yeah, it was a ball. We had a great time and just love it. Knock on wood, the world does.
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