Sylvester Stallone Once Turned Down a Movie With Arnold Schwarzenegger Because He Had to Dress in Drag

Sylvester Stallone had a few opportunities to team up with former rival Arnold Schwarzenegger. And although Stallone was interested in a collaboration, there were certain boundaries he wasn’t willing to cross to work with his rival.

Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger were pitched a movie about femme fatales

Stallone and Schwarzenegger didn’t star in too many movies together back in the day, but not for a lack of trying. In a resurfaced interview with Ain’t It Cool News, Stallone confided that there were a couple of projects offered to both of them. One of which was based on Stallone’s real-life altercation with a neighbor.

“The idea of working with Arnold came up twice – one was with John Hughes, and it was about a pair of neighbors that were determined to destroy one another with their back-and-forth everyday vendettas. It was based on an incident that actually happened with me and a neighbor named Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers,” Stallone said. “That didn’t work out.”

The other idea that was pitched to them involved the two iconic action stars disguising themselves as women. But that was also a project that didn’t get off the ground.

“The second was about a pair of undercover cops that had to go into the world of femme fatales – by dressing in wigs and dresses – to expose a serial killer. Can you imagine us two mugs trying to pass ourselves off as even semi-attractive women? You’d be better off drawing a face on the south end of a north-bound bulldog,” Stallone said.

Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger both headlined ‘Escape Plan’

Stallone and Schwarzenegger finally collaborated when Schwarzenegger made a brief appearance in the first Expendables film. After decades of disappointing offers, Stallone simply asked Schwarzenegger to be in his mercenary team-up film.

“There was always something off. The script was not right, or the studio was not as much interested in it as we were. … It just didn’t happen. Then one day I was sitting at my hairdresser, and Sly came up to me and he said ‘oh man, it would be so great if you could be doing just a little bit of something in my Expendables movie,” Schwarzenegger once said according to Daily Actor.

But Escape Plan would be the first project the two headlined together. Schwarzenegger and Stallone both felt that a film finally came along that was interesting enough for them to star in. In an interview with HeyUGuys, Schwarzenegger discussed what further attracted him to the role.

“For me it was A, Sly was in the movie. And we were trying for decades to do a movie together. So, finally we found a script. We did Expendables together, but this was like starring throughout the whole movie. So that was number one. Number two – Mikael Hafstrom. I mean, the director is a very talented director, and he’s very organized,” he said.

Sylvester Stallone felt Arnold Schwarzenegger was the superior action star

Stallone and Schwarzenegger weren’t always so civil with each other. At the height of their careers, they admitted to not caring for each other very much.

“We became incredibly competitive,” Stallone said in the documentary Arnold. “Like [Muhammad] Ali and [Joe] Frazier, or great warriors that are traveling the same course: There was only room for one of us.” 

But years later, the two were able to set their differences aside. And in Schwarzenegger’s documentary, Stallone even believed the Terminator star to be the better action hero.

“He was superior. He just had all the answers,” Stallone said. “He had the body. He had the strength. That was his character.”