‘I Play Rocky’ actor has underdog tale of his own

Las Vegas actor Anthony Ippolito landed the lead role in "I Play Rocky" — a new biopic about Sylvester Stallone and the making of the 1976 classic — after filming his own audition tapes in his grandmother's basement when no one asked him to try out. The 27-year-old, best known for playing a young Al Pacino in "The Offer," sent multiple tapes despite knowing established actors like David Corenswet, Jacob Elordi and Timothee Chalamet were also in the mix. "All I wanted to do is get my foot in the door," Ippolito said. "The key was I didn't stop. It fit the bigger story."

His persistence paid off when the tapes reached Stallone, who reportedly said, "This guy is better at being me than me." The film, out this weekend, chronicles Stallone's struggle as a broke, pregnant-wife-having actor on the edge of homelessness who wrote the "Rocky" screenplay in three days after watching Chuck Wepner go 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali. Stallone famously turned down $300,000 for the script rights to insist on playing the lead, and the film won Best Picture in 1977.

To prepare, Ippolito studied Stallone's early interviews and films like "The Lords of Flatbush," worked on the actor's distinctive voice, and learned to box southpaw despite being right-handed. He trained five or six days a week for over a year, sometimes twice daily, to capture Rocky's famous silhouette. "Even with the training, I felt pretty tired by the end of it," he acknowledged of filming the iconic "Gonna Fly Now" running scene.

Ippolito met Stallone about a month before filming and found him "disarming and sweet, so generous and open." What struck him most was learning how dark that period was for Stallone. "He was on a pretty lonely road. He was vulnerable in sharing this tough time," Ippolito said. The film arrives as "Rocky" celebrates its 50th anniversary with a remastered 4K theatrical re-release running Saturday through Wednesday.

Sources: Las Vegas Review-Journal