The role Sylvester Stallone regrets turning down the most: “I didn’t have the guts to do it”
Sylvester Stallone has been refreshingly candid over the years about career decisions he later came to regret. For example, he once admitted he was “an idiot” for turning down $34million to commit to Rocky IV before Rocky III was even released—a figure equivalent to an eye-watering $85m today. Stallone has also been open about roles he passed on, famously calling his decision to let Harrison Ford take the lead in Witness one of the biggest mistakes of his career.
However, there was another part he turned down that stands out as the most significant role that got away—one he admitted he passed on because the prospect of playing it scared him at the time.
In the late 1970s, Stallone was one of Hollywood’s hottest properties, although his decision-making was already starting to be questioned. In the wake of 1976’s Rocky winning ‘Best Picture’ and netting Stallone Academy Award nominations for ‘Best Actor’ and ‘Best Original Screenplay’, the young actor decided to star in the labour union crime drama F.I.S.T. and then write, direct, and star in the 1940s professional wrestling drama Paradise Alley. Unfortunately, while F.I.S.T. was a modest hit, Paradise Alley was a disaster that was panned by critics and made an abysmal $7m at the box office.
Before committing to Paradise Alley, though, Stallone was approached about another film – and he later admitted he was a fool to turn it down. You see, the same year wrestling misfire hit screens, Hal Ashby’s Vietnam War drama Coming Home was a critical and commercial smash that won three Oscars, including the first for its star Jon Voight. It told the story of a woman, played by Jane Fonda, who falls in love with the paraplegic veteran she once went to high school with, all while her Marine husband is overseas fighting in the war.
Interestingly, the studio didn’t initially want Voight to play the lead role in the film because his popularity with audiences had tapered off significantly in the decade following his Oscar-nominated turn in 1968’s Midnight Cowboy. The role was therefore offered to Al Pacino and Jack Nicholson, who both declined – and then it found its way to Stallone.
In 2012, the actor was brutally honest when he told Maclean’s that the idea of playing a paraplegic veteran scared him, as did the film’s “liberal point of view”. However, he would later have a change of heart, realising that he was afraid that the role was the reason he should have run headlong toward it. “Now, I think I should have done it,” admitted Stallone. “Usually, whenever you’re scared of something, do it. If you’re not afraid of it, don’t do it.”
Hindsight is 20/20, though, and he confessed, “I was very foolish. I didn’t have the guts to do it, and at that time I really wasn’t a fleshed-out actor. I don’t know even if I am now.”
In 2022, Stallone told The Hollywood Reporter that, while he regretted not putting himself out there by accepting the part, he thought the right actor got it in the end. “I couldn’t have done it better than Jon Voight,” acknowledged Stallone. “He was great”.
Ultimately, perhaps movie history unfolded as it was always meant to. Just four years after Coming Home, Sylvester Stallone starred in his own seminal Vietnam War veteran movie, First Blood. This debut of Stallone’s now-iconic action hero, John Rambo, was a far more complex and nuanced film than the franchise would later become, portraying Rambo as a traumatised veteran grappling with the difficulties of returning to civilian life. This time, Stallone leaned into the challenge, revising the script seven times to ensure the character and his story were crafted to perfection.
