The trailer for I Play Rocky dropped today, taking audiences back to one of Hollywood’s greatest underdog stories: the struggling actor who refused to sell the script for Rocky unless he got to play the lead himself.
It’s the kind of story that’s become legend. But according to Sylvester Stallone, it wasn’t just grit that got Rocky made.
In an interview with The Dove Foundation, Stallone said faith shaped the film from the very beginning. He believes God led him to write it, which is why the original movie famously opens with a mural of Jesus watching over the boxing ring.
“In the first Rocky movie,” he said. “I was never a writer and all of a sudden one day I felt like I was being asked to write this. And I’ve said it before, I felt as though God was moving me to do this.”
Even more surprising than his reflections on Rocky, though, were his comments about church. Recent studies show that a rising number of Christians are abstaining from the Church.
Yet at a time when more Christians are treating Sunday mornings as optional, Stallone makes a pretty direct case for why he believes following Jesus isn’t something you’re supposed to do by yourself.
“Everyone in the church is on the same page in the sense of spirit and unity and oneness and you don’t get that alone,” Stallone said. “A lot of people say, ‘Oh, I can do it on my own. I have a one-on-one relationship with God,’ well it’s not quite the same.”
And, never one to pull punches, he didn’t stop there.
“Some people maybe try to justify their laziness,” he said. “You take out what you put in.”
Stallone’s point wasn’t simply that Christians should attend church more often. He argued that there’s something about being part of a church body that can’t be replicated through private devotion or streaming a sermon from your couch.
To explain it, he reached for a metaphor that feels fitting coming from one of cinema’s most famous fighters.
“Without the church it’s like having a boat without the rudder,” he said. “The church is the gym of the soul. And the priests, the reverends, the ministers and the pastors—they are the trainers. They are the ones that guide you over that difficult time and take you to that place that you don’t think you can go, but with their help you can go.”
The comments came during a broader conversation about his own faith journey. Raised Catholic, Stallone said he drifted from God during the height of his Hollywood career before eventually finding his way back. Looking back now, he sees Rocky itself as part of that story.
These days, he says, church has become a regular reminder that he doesn’t have to carry everything on his own.
“The more I go to church and the more I turn myself over to the process of believing in Jesus and to listening to his word and have him guide my hand,” Stallone said, “I feel the pressure’s off me now. I really do.”
