Anthony Ippolito Went from Unsolicited Tapes to Playing Stallone

Fifty years after Rocky premiered in December 1975-era release history, the film has produced its third underdog story: Anthony Ippolito, 27, plays Sylvester Stallone in Peter Farrelly's making-of drama I Play Rocky, and his performance is now being talked up for a best actor Oscar nomination alongside contenders such as Tom Cruise, Matt Damon and John Malkovich.

The part did not come through the usual channels. Ippolito sent in self-taped auditions before the project even had a script, an experience he described as "sending your work into the abyss – even more so when no one's asking for your audition in the first place". Film websites tipped bigger names for the role: David Corenswet, Jacob Elordi, even Timothée Chalamet. "People around me said, 'Don't get your hopes up, they're probably looking at bigger names. That's Hollywood,'" Ippolito recalled.

What changed the odds?

Director Peter Farrelly says Ippolito was the first actor he and the producers looked at — and once they saw him, there was no point in auditioning anyone else. The claim is striking, and worth holding up to scrutiny: an unknown beating a shortlist of A-listers is the film's own plot, replayed in its casting. Farrelly's account is the only evidence offered. Yet the results are on screen. When the opening credits roll, Ippolito's voice drops an octave into Stallone's stuffy, sinus-heavy delivery; his eyes droop, his chin juts, his shoulders round. He bulked up through what he called "a lot of eating, a lot of protein … it required an entire lifestyle shift".

The physical mimicry carries risk. Stallone's drooping features and slurred speech result from a forceps injury at birth, and an impression could easily become caricature. But Stallone himself has been in touch with his approval. "He had a positive reaction and I'm very grateful – because this is, in a lot of ways, a love letter to what he persevered through," Ippolito said.

What does the film actually cover?

I Play Rocky traces Stallone from his early struggles in New York to success in Los Angeles — what Ippolito calls a "very dark, lonely time". Stallone worked in a fishmonger's and appeared in an adult movie to pay rent, taking bit parts as tough guys, cops and thugs. Matt Dillon plays his domineering father, who routinely belittled him over his speech and looks. "There's this incongruence," Ippolito said. "People would mistake him for being, um, maybe not smart – just a strong, burly guy with this slur. And then he's actually a brilliant writer." He quotes Rocky co-star Burt Young, who called Stallone "an orphan in life" with "a big fire burning and no place to put it".

Farrelly's film leans toward comedy caper and inspirational sports movie rather than psychological study. It depicts the scrappy original shoot, which could not run a day over schedule for fear the studio would shut it down: single frenzied takes, Stallone limping through filming with a strained leg tendon, then a broken hand from punching a frozen side of beef in the meat-locker scene, and cast and crew hiding in a walk-in freezer from a union rep threatening to revoke their permit.

The centerpiece comes before greenlight: producers offering Stallone ever-larger sums to surrender the title role. He turned down $300,000 — nearly $2 million in today's money — despite few career prospects, a heavily pregnant wife, and being forced at one point to sell his own dog to make ends meet. Would Ippolito have done the same? "I don't know, it's a lot of money," he laughed. "I don't want to make myself sound spineless! … I think there's a certain naive quality. Like he was able to just, at a young age, almost not know the rules so he could break them."

Ippolito's own path ran through baseball — a childhood pitching prodigy who appeared on Ripley's Believe it or Not! — then walk-on parts in Not Fade Away, The English Teacher and Pixels, a lead in Netflix's Grand Army, and Pacino in The Offer, the series about the making of The Godfather. Playing two of the most famous actors alive "will throw you, for sure", he said, describing it as "an infinity staircase".

With awards season approaching, a nomination would put Ippolito, newly acquainted with Andrew Garfield and "still recovering", in a category with "people I've looked up to for the last 20 years" — a test of whether the third Rocky underdog story can end the way the first two did.