Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone still vividly remember their rabid rivalry.
The elder statesmen of high-octane Hollywood action famously competed throughout the ’80s and ’90s and sat down to dish on the extreme lengths they went to for a joint interview titled TMZ Presents: Arnold & Sly: Rivals, Friends, Icons.
“As soon as I saw him, it was like, ‘Bang, two alphas hitting’,” Sly recalled to moderator and TMZ founder Harvey Levin. “If we walked into a party, we’d be staring at each other for a few seconds, and then, ‘I got to get that guy. He didn’t do anything wrong, but he will’.”
While Sylvester said Arnie’s rise helped “motivate” him, and the Terminator actor agreed his fellow action star “was very helpful” as someone he could “chase” after, Arnold admitted he “started this whole thing” by “saying stupid things” and “being competitive”.
“It was kind of like, ‘Well, what was your body fat?’” he recalled asking Sylvester. “And I was down to 7%, so I said I was down to 10%. So it became a competition with the body. Then he started using machine guns that were huge machine guns.”
“I was running after him,” Arnold continued. “He was not running after me. So I said, when we did Predator — you got to get a machine gun that is normally mounted on a tank or in a helicopter — I said … I got to have a bigger machine gun than he used in Rambo.”
Their competition had started much earlier at the 1977 Golden Globes, however, when Sylvester’s Rocky won Best Film after Arnold claimed the New Actor of the Year award for Stay Hungry. Sylvester said that he “lost it” when Rocky won.
“I literally went and picked up this entire bouquet of flowers and tossed them straight up in the air, sort of aiming toward [Arnold’s] side of the table,” he said. “And it all comes down, he’s sort of sitting there [thinking] … [he] just threw down the gauntlet.”
The most insidious incident came in the early ’90s, however, when Arnold used certain sources and Hollywood agents to pretend he was circling Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, a mother-son buddy cop movie, only to ensure it landed in Sylvester’s lap.
The film, which starred Sylvester and Golden Girls alum Estelle Getty, was a critical flop.
“I was, of course, absolutely in heaven,” Arnold said. “I felt like the only way that I could catch up with him was if he stumbled. It was psychological. This is a whole thing about Hollywood — when you’re always as good as your last movie.”
The action icons have long patched things up, even carving Halloween pumpkins together in 2022. Arnold said he admires Sylvester for his emotional vulnerability and “dedication and passion,” only for Sly to respond in kind.
“He’s like a chess player. You don’t know what’s going on, but he gets it done,” he said of the former California governor.
“And he really does have a big heart, he does. I mean, you wouldn’t think it because we’re ‘action guys,’ but we’re more emotional than a lot of more dramatic actors, trust me.”