Q: What are the parallels between you and Rocky?

Sylvester: I think it’s pretty similar. I’ve had my really good moments and I’m certainly not at the top of my game though I had a nice long run. And I don’t regret any of it and I don’t expect anything to ever come back, but I thought, boy, what a great idea to do a fantasy, like one more time. How do you purge yourself of all this anger? Everybody has anger or regret in them one way or another. How do you get it out? Some people go to psychiatrists. Some people paint pictures. Some people talk it out. Rocky, to deal with his beefs, to deal with his frustration had to get it out physically. For me to get it out I had to do it with the pen.

Q: What did you have to get out?

Sylvester: It’s a frustration. Could you have done more with your life? Were you not as good to people that you should have been? Were you not as loyal in relationships? It’s little things. Did you not work as hard? Should you have done other films? Should you have been more responsible? Did you not give the children the kind of care you should have? I think everyone has questions in their mind. Did they do their very best?

Q: Does this movie reflect the new trend of baby boomers still going strong?

Sylvester: Absolutely. Can you imagine with science, the way it’s going in the next 10 years. 60-year-olds, they are going to be playing professional sports. You think I’m joking. I think you’ll have guys that normally retire at 40 will be playing to 51 or 47. I’m serious. They are replacing knees and joints. You’ll have soccer players saying, “Damn!” once they figure out knees you’ll have athletes going forever. It will be unbelievable.

Q: How hard was it to train for this at 60?

Sylvester: It was pretty hard because there was a lot of injuries. There was a lot of physical contact in this so there was a lot of problems with ribs and bad hands and actually a broken foot. Remember in that training sequence, I was stretching and I hit a bar bell and broke two toes.

Q: What is your fitness regime?

Sylvester: Obviously you didn’t read my book. I’m only kidding. I try not to overdo it. I eat pretty normally. I try to eat my biggest meals early in the day and I eat pretty well Monday through Friday. I’m not a big chicken breast guy. I eat beef, lamb, pork and filet of sole. For lunch I eat a huge meal and then a medium dinner. Lunch is the big meal. Come Saturday night and Sunday I just eat every piece of junk on the planet, cheesecake, pizza, pancakes, French toast, and I sometimes gain 8 or 9 pounds on the weekend. On Friday night I get on the scale and it’s 202 and Sunday night it’s 211. What? I swear, it’s amazing, but I know where it came from. So on Monday I’ll have my omelet and start eating normal portions again of mostly protein with vegetables and then believe it or not by Friday it’s gone.

Q: But not 7 eggs, right?

Sylvester: It’s 5 eggs, but not raw. That’s a movie thing.

Q: What do you think looking back at your glory years?

Sylvester: I made a few bad decisions, no question about that. I made some good ones and made some bad ones.

Q: What are the bad ones?

Sylvester: You know! Like 'Rhinestone' and 'Stop or my mom will shoot'. I’m not trying to embarrass you. I’m only kidding. There are certain things you think are going to work, like Judge Dredd, which I thought was a great concept, fantastic, and somebody has to take the fall for it. We know there are more chefs in that than one. Then there were some really excellent choices. The business has changed radically. It’s a whole different planet now. It’s much more of a business now. It’s very scientific. I was at a meeting last night and it’s extraordinary. It’s like a war. It’s charted out. It’s planned. There is very little room in there for luck, and I get that now. I’m not exactly a child of that way of thinking. I just prefer to write and try to do something emotional and let them handle the business, which is going along very well. But it’s a different kind of filmmaking today and a whole different thing. Each generation has a different type of films it produces, like in the 70s, you can see it. It’s like a different person or a different nation. In the 80s it was just kind uhhh, and then the 90s had some interesting stuff and now here we are in a, I don’t know where we are at. We are in a different world. I think maybe the CGI has peaked and maybe people will want to come back and do more handmade films. I don’t know.

Q: Why do you think you rose in your era?

Sylvester: The way I think about it is, right after Vietnam I think there was an opportunity for escapism, and there wasn’t a lot of escapism being done. There were so-called action films, but they really weren’t action films. Like the French Connection really wasn’t an action film. It was a drama with some action. Then something happened, the birth of the action film, the real uber-action, like First Blood. That hadn’t been seen, ever, actually. Then it started to go and here comes Arnold and Bruce and Van Damme and it became this thing, this amazing, more like the one-man army situation. I was part of that era and now that era is gone. It really has gone. Could you imagine making that kind of film today like Rambo? They are doing different things, like Borne Supremacy, very smart, very clever, very beautifully done, fantastic director, fantastic Oliver Woods, everything is great about it. I have nothing but respect for it. So it’s a different thing. No wolf in sheep’s clothing. It’s a different outfit. The action is there, it just looks different.

Q: How did Mike Tyson’s role come about?

Sylvester: He called! He called and asked if he could play the other guy, and I said no. I have a premature death, I don’t think so. He said he’d like to be in the film and I said, why don’t you be a heckler? He said, I can do that. So he showed up that morning and he was having at it. Todd was yelling back at him and he asked if we had people to keep Mike back. I told him he was going to be allright. He asked, “He’s not going to get into the ring, is he?” No, he’s fine! He’s very mellow.

Q: Rambo?

Sylvester: Rambo is still a work way down the line. We are still talking about it. I really have to think, where does Rambo fit in today? I think Rocky does fit in that message. I’m not sure about Rambo, or at least me as Rambo. Rocky is the bright side and Rambo is the dark side. He’s an interesting character, but he’s not the kind you can go, “Here son, watch this tape and be just like him.” You go, “Here, watch Rocky.”

Q: Will there be more Rockys?

Sylvester: No! When he says, “Yo, Adrian, we did it.” He means, we lived the life. When he dissolves I was hoping he would just dissolve. With the people running up the steps, that’s his legacy, and it’s really amazing, but that’s for real. People run up those stairs.

Q: So what now?

Sylvester: I’d like to focus on directing. I’d like to direct Edgar Allen Poe eventually. There are some interesting projects out there. I’d like to work with some of these young actors. I wish I had done it earlier on, more directing and more writing.