Sylvester Stallone Arnold Schwarzenegger feud, Digi Mart USA News: Sylvester Stallone candidly discussed the origins of his decades-long feud with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Stallone, 80, said he and Schwarzenegger, 79, were “antagonistic” toward one another from the start during his appearance on Thursday’s episode of “The Rest Is Entertainment” podcast.
Their rivalry stemmed from both wanting to be the leader in the action genre.
He recalled sensing that Schwarzenegger was “going to be a problem” when the “Terminator” star gave him dirty looks at the Golden Globes one year. At their next meeting, Stallone threw a bowl of flowers at him.
“I made like I was celebrating, like, ‘yay,'” he explained. “And the gauntlet was thrown, and it was on.”
Stallone said his rival was naturally antagonistic, and that both were physical and liked to challenge one another. As they competed at the box office with hits such as “Rambo” and “Commando,” they also had bad blood off-screen.
“It was very contentious, trust me, which I enjoyed,” Stallone stressed. “Because the madder I made him, the madder he made me, the more we fought to make the next action film — bigger knife, louder gun, more body count, this and that, better location.
It just kept elevating.”
The father of five said their competitiveness was so intense that when they were part of the group of celebrity founders and investors who launched the restaurant chain Planet Hollywood in 1991, they could not stand to be on the same stage to promote it.
Their feud was squashed about 20 years later, when Schwarzenegger entered politics and ran for Governor of California in 2003, which he won. Stallone recalled running into Schwarzenegger at a cigar shop and said he buried the hatchet between them, noting they were no longer competitors in the movie business.
He said they shared a cigar together and remain very good friends to this day.
“We’re always going to be competitive,” he said. “That’s the nature of the beast and I enjoy it.” He added, “We’re not as financially competitive anymore … that’s long gone.”
“It’s something that’ll never happen again, where you have two actors in the same genre, literally going for it – on-screen, off-screen,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, Stallone recently opened up about the physical toll of his decades-long Hollywood career while promoting the fourth season of “Tulsa King.” In an interview with Fox News Digital, he revealed that his work on 2010’s “The Expendables” left him with serious injuries to his back, neck and shoulders.
“I have been injured many, many times, but after ‘Expendables,’ I ended up with nine back operations, three neck fusions. Both shoulders ripped out.
It’s been brutal,” he said. “I think I’m an idiot for doing that,” he admitted, referring to his long history of doing stunts in movies.
“I’m proud that I broke myself in pieces? Like, duh, no.”
