Sylvester Stallone Defends AI: “It’s Happening, Go With It Or Be Trampled”

Sylvester Stallone is defending the use of AI as an inevitable force that Hollywood will just have to accept and embrace.

The actor-writer-director got on the topic while referencing Lionsgate’s upcoming John Rambo prequel movie. The 80-year-old actor originally pitched producers on playing his younger self and then using AI to de-age his performance (30-year-old Noah Centineo was cast instead). The idea drew criticism when he previously discussed it.

“I get in trouble for this [but] AI is here to stay,” he told The Overlap. “I wanted to do half-human, half-AI and put it together, and of course everyone’s going nuts. I go, ‘That’s happening, guys. People are selling their images. There’s going to be 20 Elvis avatars … This is happening.'”

Continued Stallone: “So I would take that risk, even though you get blasted bombastically from the creative community. And their [complaints are] right! They’re right. But we can’t stop this. It’s an avalanche. It’s just out of our control. If you don’t go with it, you will be trampled by it.”

Stallone also talked about the threat of AI to young actors still trying to break into the business.

“You’ve just chosen the most difficult profession in the world,” he said. “And it’s going to get more difficult because of AI. I know my daughter [Scarlet Rose Stallone] is an actress. I said, ‘Please get into gaming. Do something [else].'”

During the interview, Stallone was asked the best actor or actress of all time and he singled out Peter O’Toole, particularly his performances in The Lion in Winter and Becket. Among contemporary actors, he praised Tom Hardy.

Stallone will have to endure somebody else playing his younger self even sooner than the Rambo movie. On Nov. 6 comes I Play Rocky, from director Peter Farrelly, which stars Anthony Ippolito as a young Stallone as he struggled to get his iconic breakthrough movie made.

John Rambo follows a young Rambo serving as a Green Beret during the Vietnam War and is from director Jalmari Helander (Sisu). Stallone has an executive producer credit on the film. The film is scheduled for June 4, 2027.