Sylvester Stallone Hates the Idea of Using Green Screens in Action Films
Sylvester Stallone was used to doing real physical stunts in most of his action films. Which was why the actor didn’t really care all that much for having his hard work replaced digitally.
What Sylvester Stallone really felt about green screens vs. stunts
Stallone wasn’t too impressed with the opportunities technology like green screens created. Green screens can allow whole cities to come alive during movies without having to physically build sets. Or travel to other places to get the right look. They also presented the opportunity to lessen the burden of physical stunts for actors. Still, Stallone preferred the grounded reality and authenticity of action stunts. He actually might’ve found that a bit easier than doing green screens.
“I don’t know how those guys do that green-screen work – I’ve done a bit and it drives me crazy. I like the heat of an explosion in my face, a hunk of tin flying past my head 30ft from where it should’ve gone! It’s hard to get the emotion without it,” Stallone once said according to Contact Music.
But he admitted that the older he got, the harder stunts were to do. Even past stunts he used to do in his physical prime ended up costing him.
“It comes at a price. Arnie must have lifted a million pounds of weights in his life but it comes at a price,” he said. “There’s only so far you can push the machine, then it’s a case of taking it to the mechanic to get this part fixed, or that part fixed. These days that happens more and more! But I still love the challenge. I get there and I go, ‘Let me jump off, let me go into the water…'”
How Sylvester Stallone felt CGI would affect action films for years to come
Stallone felt action films were still very important to cinema. But he also believed, as time went on, the genre wasn’t getting as much respect as it used to. Despite paving the way for other more appreciated genre films.
“There has always been an elitist attitude toward action films,” Stallone said in a 2010 interview with Time. “Good action films and not crap, but good action films are really morality plays. They deal in modern, mythic culture. The industry has dismissed that, which I think is a big flaw. Action films have been the cornerstone of this business. Without those escapist films, they wouldn’t be making the so-called important dramas.”
The Rocky star further asserted that an overabundance of CGI-laden action films helped sour audiences on the genre. But this might’ve caused the genre to return to, what he thought, would be its glory days.
“I think audiences have hit the wall with CGI and special effects. They have seen so many over-the-top events that they can’t suspend disbelief. I think because some of the films have not delivered, there might be a revisionist return to classic action films like The Wild Bunch or the Charles Bronson [films] or Dirty Harry,” he said.
Sylvester Stallone warned actors not to do their own stunts after ‘The Expendables’ changed everything
Stallone sustained one of the biggest injuries of his career in The Expendables. During a sequence in the film, Stallone was working alongside co-star Stone Cold Steve Austin. The stunt that went wrong caused the Rambo star to land the wrong way, immediately hurting him.
“Actually, my fight with Stone Cold Steve Austin was so vicious that I ended up getting a hairline fracture in my neck. I’m not joking. I haven’t told anyone this, but I had to have a very serious operation afterwards. I now have a metal plate in my neck,” Stallone once said in an interview with FHM (via The Guardian).
Despite the surgery, Stallone confided that he was never the same after the mishap. And he encouraged actors to avoid making the same mistakes that he did.
“I never recovered from Expendables 1,” Stallone said on his reality show The Family Stallone. “After that film, it was literally physically never the same. So I warn people, don’t do your own stunts.”
