Bigger guns? More kills on-screen? Arnold Schwarzenegger details peak of rivalry with Sylvester Stallone
LOS ANGELES - If you grew up between the 1970s and the late 1990s and were in the mood to catch an action film, chances are, the movie starred either Arnold Schwarzenegger or Silvester Stallone.
During the height of their Hollywood fame, the two could not stand one another. In an interview for Friday's episode of The Issue Is, the former California Governor detailed how heated – and borderline petty – their rivalry was.
Over the course of their A-list fame, the two constantly tried to one-up each other.
"I think that we were very competitive and we both acknowledge that this was very important to our careers because competition creates performance," Schwarzenegger said. "I was trying to outperform him. He was trying to outperform me. And what happened was we got better, and we were training harder."
‘It’s stupid stuff, I tell you'
Schwarzenegger hilariously details some of the things the two icons tried to one-up each other on:
"If the script and commander had 46 people that I'd kill, I had to go and kill 86 people to make sure that there's no way that you can beat that. And then he would go and compete against me about who has a bigger knife to kill people with. And then who has the biggest gun? And then he has a gun in Rambo – this big gun from the helicopter. So then I got the bigger gun in the jungle. And then during the shooting of Predator, where we mowed down all the trees."
Schwarzenegger admitted some of things they competed over were ridiculous.
"It was stupid competition, but it was in a way funny also," he said.
But the one move that may have been the knockout punch during their beef was how Schwarzenegger tricked "Sly" Stallone into starring in a "bad" movie. Schwarzenegger read a script for 1992 action-comedy movie Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and leaked out information to the media that he was interested in starring in the film.
Stallone, who wanted to one-up his foe, took the main role in the film – which ultimately scored a 14% on Rotten Tomatoes.
"I can talk people into losing and they can talk them into making a movie that I would never touch," Schwarzenegger told Michaelson.
As the years have gone by, the two have since developed a supportive relationship – stemming from their business partnership around Planet Hollywood.
"All of a sudden we're flying all over the world – having the greatest time on a plane and telling each other jokes," Schwarzenegger said. "We grew out of the stage and now we are very supportive of one another."