How Carl Weathers got the role of Apollo Creed in ‘Rocky’
The entire ethos behind the Rocky franchise feels like capturing lightning in a bottle. After shopping the script around to various outlets looking to get it made, Sylvester Stallone eventually turned it into one of the most inspiring tales of determination and redemption in film history. The story of his underdog boxer going up against the infamous champion Apollo Creed captured the hearts and minds of the nation.
Although anyone facing Stallone’s Rocky Balboa had to look imposing, Carl Weathers recalled that people weren’t initially looking at him for the part. Throughout his time working on TV shows like Good Times, Weathers had already proven himself to be a good actor whenever the camera laid eyes on him. After a pro football career, and as he began starring in various blaxploitation films from the era, Stallone was hard at work making the rounds trying to get his story off the ground.
Although Weathers was far from a well-known name by that point, he did express some interest in working alongside Stallone on the film, telling Rich Eisen, “This script came to me through agents that I had at the time, and the first thing my agent says is everything an actor wants to hear: ‘They don’t really want you’. After cajoling and crying and jumping up and down, I got the chance to go in and read for it.”
While Stallone was still known as the film’s writer at the time, Weathers got the chance to read for the part on the very last day of the week, having assumed that most of the casting directors had gone home. Although he didn’t know that Stallone would become the fabled Rocky Balboa, Weathers initially had a few missteps when he critiqued his acting method when reading with him.
Not taking to how Stallone delivered the lines, Weathers later recalled how frustrated he initially got when working on the character, recalling, “At the end of the reading, it’s like crickets. I thought I blew the interview, so I chirp out, ‘Well, if you got me a real actor, I could probably do it a lot better’. I think I got the job because Sly wanted to beat the hell out of me.”
Despite Stallone wanting a real boxer who could act getting in the ring, Weathers recalled that the energy was electric when he first got into the ring with his costar, sensing that something else was going on that went beyond the traditional action movies. While no one had the aspirations that the movie would become a cultural touchstone, Weathers would continue to pursue different acting gigs before getting a few compliments from Mark Hamill.
As he began working on projects in San Francisco, Weathers would run into the Star Wars actor, who would go on to marvel at how well he worked opposite Stallone. Little did Weathers know that his appearances in Rocky would open doors for him beyond anything that he could have comprehended, eventually working alongside fellow action luminaries like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator.
The allure of space would eventually come calling for Weathers as well, joining Hamill amongst the ever-growing cast of Star Wars media by starring in the latest episodes of The Mandalorian. The odds may have been stacked against Weathers from the beginning, but just like Apollo Creed, he was never one to be counted out easily.
Liste to Carl Weathers explain how he snagged the role of Apollo Creed below.
