Anthony Ippolito Plays a Young Sylvester Stallone in 'I Play Rocky'
Anthony Ippolito Plays a Young Sylvester Stallone in 'I Play Rocky'
Anthony Ippolito is playing Sylvester Stallone in I Play Rocky, a film about how Stallone got Rocky made in 1976. The film is directed by Peter Farrelly and made by Amazon MGM Studios. Ippolito spoke about the role in a Variety column published on 25 October 2026.
The role took a long time to build. Ippolito spent nearly two years bulking up from about 150 pounds (68 kilograms) to roughly 180 pounds (82 kilograms). He trained at Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn, and he said the change needed consistency and a whole new way of living, kept up over a long stretch.
The cast around him is large. AnnaSophia Robb plays Stallone's first wife, Sasha. Stephan James plays Carl Weathers, the actor who later played Apollo Creed. Kiki Seto, P.J. Byrne, Matt Dillon, Tracy Letts and Jay Duplass also appear.
One of the film's first scenes involves a dog. Stallone once sold his dog Butkus for $40 because he could not afford to feed him, before he became famous. After he sold the Rocky script, he bought the dog back for $15,000. Ippolito's first scenes were with a dog playing Butkus, and he said he had only met that dog the day before filming began. The 140- to 160-pound animal did not warm up to him until a couple of days in, and treats helped.
The film has already been seen in several places. It had its Toronto International Film Festival premiere in September, with Farrelly presenting it, and its Los Angeles premiere at AFI Fest on 24 October at the TCL Chinese Theatre. AFI describes it as "the ultimate underdog story behind the ultimate underdog movie." Amazon MGM first showed a teaser trailer at CinemaCon, the theatre owners' convention, in April.
The release plan is now set. I Play Rocky opens in limited release on 6 November, which means it will play in a small number of cinemas at first. It goes wide on 20 November, when it moves into many more theatres. Limited and wide openings are a common way for studios to test an audience before a film reaches the whole country.
Ippolito's career has also moved forward this year. Deadline reported in July that he had signed with CAA, one of Hollywood's largest talent agencies, the same month a first trailer for the film was released.
For anyone curious about how a biopic like this comes together, the details are the story. Stallone's early days are the film's subject, and Ippolito's two years of training and his first day beside a very large dog are the way the production reached the screen.
