Anthony Ippolito Gained 30 Pounds to Become Young Stallone in 'I Play Rocky'

Anthony Ippolito spent nearly two years transforming his body from roughly 150 pounds to 180 to play a young Sylvester Stallone in "I Play Rocky," the Peter Farrelly-directed Amazon MGM Studios release that finished first runner-up for the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The 20-something actor landed the role through what he calls "the kitchen sink": with no script and no invitation, he shot an audition tape in his grandmother's basement, hanging a heavy bag from a wooden beam and pulling on vintage boxing gloves that "matched the vibe."

"I was like, 'I gotta try something,'" Ippolito told the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast.

Bigger celebrity names were circling the part. Some people advised him not to bother. He shot the tape anyway, picked the scenes he thought were strongest, and kept sending material until he heard it was looking good.

How do you capture Stallone without doing an impression?

Ippolito describes his preparation as borderline obsessive listening. He combed every scrap of footage he could find of the unknown-era Stallone: "The Lords of Flatbush," "Police Story," "The Prisoner of Second Avenue," "Capone" — often just two or three scenes each.

He also ordered "Rebel," an early Stallone film, from a Japanese website. It took two months to arrive.

The goal, he says, was finding the man underneath the characters. "He's playing characters, but as an actor he's also trying to tell the truth," Ippolito said. "Then you have the burden of finding it within yourself in a way that feels honest and not forced or heavy-handed."

Stallone's signature drawl stems from partial facial paralysis caused by a forceps accident at birth — a physical detail Ippolito had to inhabit rather than imitate.

What did Stallone himself say?

Stallone has seen the finished film and responded positively. Speaking with him before filming gave Ippolito something no tape could: firsthand accounts of the rooms, the producers and the toll of refusing to sell his script without starring in it.

"He told me he really loved the film, and he's really excited for more people to see it," Ippolito said.

Ippolito also studied the handwritten first draft of "Rocky," scrawled in three and a half days in a red Mead notebook — dialogue marked "R" underlined for Rocky, "P" for Paulie, with crossings-out and KFC buckets throughout. "It was a first draft," he notes. "It's nuts to say that the polished, finished, beautiful art that 'Rocky' is was made in three and a half days total."

Yes, he drank the raw eggs — once

The physical transformation required "an entire lifestyle shift," trained at Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn. Farrelly wanted the silhouette; Stallone's stocky, muscular physique against the image of a man trying to sell his intellectual property was part of what drew Ippolito to the role.

The raw eggs happened exactly once, in a hotel room with no microwave, as a protein workaround. "I learned from that for sure," he said.

The path here runs through an unusual childhood. Spotted as "oddly good at baseball" at age 3, Ippolito appeared on local news, "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" and "Regis and Kelly" before a commercial agent told his mother to build a college fund. Later credits include Adam Sandler's "Pixels," Netflix's "Grand Army" and Al Pacino in the Paramount+ limited series "The Offer."

Working with Farrelly, the "Green Book" Oscar winner, surprised him with its freedom. "I was pretty surprised by how much room and freedom he gave me to play, to find things and explore moments," he said.

Why does Ippolito think Hollywood needs 'raw, human stories'?

Asked about the wave of films celebrating acting itself amid AI-generated performers, Ippolito argued that actors "have to be humanists" — and that Stallone writing longhand with a Bic pen has never felt more urgent.

"I think we really need more stories about people doing things themselves, thinking for themselves and taking agency over their lives," he said. He cites John Cassavetes as a model and calls for more funding of small- and midbudget films, arguing that $100 million or $200 million productions acquire "a gloss over the whole thing."

"I really think there's more of a need for raw, human stories than ever before," he said. "So hopefully that makes a resurgence."

Next, Ippolito wants intimate, character-driven work — he met Wim Wenders in Zurich after seeing "Perfect Days" and calls it maybe the coolest experience of his life. The next Stallone, his story suggests, may still be training in someone's grandmother's basement.