Basement tapes and raw eggs: Anthony Ippolito's fight to play young Stallone

Anthony Ippolito did not wait to be asked to play Sylvester Stallone. With no script and no invitation, he hung a heavy bag in his grandmother’s basement, laced up vintage boxing gloves and filmed himself throwing punches.

He described that homemade audition on the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast, as reported by Variety. The gamble paid off. Ippolito leads I Play Rocky, a film about an unknown Stallone willing his screenplay for Rocky into existence.

The project is an Amazon MGM Studios release, written by Peter Gamble and directed by Peter Farrelly. It arrives with festival momentum after finishing as first runner-up for the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, the audience-voted prize.

That is a useful launchpad. Toronto’s audience award often shapes the autumn conversation around new releases, and I Play Rocky is due in theatres in November 2026, according to Amazon MGM.

What makes this stand out is how far Ippolito went to find the young Stallone. He tracked down early footage, including Rebel, ordering a copy from a Japanese website and waiting two months for it to arrive. He listened closely to the voice. He also studied the handwritten first draft of Rocky, written in a red Mead notebook.

Then came the physical work. Ippolito spent nearly two years building from about 150 pounds to roughly 180 pounds while training at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn. He even drank raw eggs once, a nod familiar to anyone who knows the original training montage.

The casting leans on a close physical match. Ippolito shares Stallone’s Italian roots, jet-black hair and soulful eyes, as noted by Variety. Variety’s review said he looks startlingly like Stallone and described his handling of the voice as a remarkable act of channelling, according to Variety.

Ippolito’s earlier credits include Pixels, Grand Army and playing Al Pacino in The Offer, the series about the making of The Godfather. Playing Stallone is his first major film lead.

He also used the podcast to talk about where acting goes next. With AI-generated performers entering the business, he said actors “have to be humanists”. He said he wants raw, character-driven films in the vein of John Cassavetes, the American director known for loose, intimate dramas about ordinary people.

For audiences, this means a familiar Hollywood legend told from the other end of the story. Not the champion in the ring, but the struggling writer trying to get his script made.