“It Wasn’t a Joke — It Was a Matter of Life and Death”: Sylvester Stallone Opens Up About His 20-Year War With Arnold Schwarzenegger

Sylvester Stallone has admitted that his decades-long feud with Arnold Schwarzenegger was far from a publicity stunt. According to the actor, their rivalry lasted for around 20 years and at times resembled a real war — they were literally “at each other’s throats.”

Today, 80-year-old Stallone and 79-year-old Schwarzenegger are close friends and co-stars in the famous The Expendables franchise. But there was a time when Hollywood’s two biggest action stars fiercely competed for roles, awards and the status of the industry’s most in-demand action hero.

“It wasn’t a joke. It was a matter of life and death,” Stallone said.

“We were supposed to end up together in the Roman Colosseum,” the actor added, recalling the scale of their rivalry.

At the same time, Stallone admits that they both quickly realized their feud could actually work in their favor and help them climb even higher in Hollywood.

“It’s like when one fighter insults another — the other guy starts training even harder so he can beat his rival. We needed each other, absolutely,” Stallone said in an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine.

Their rivalry began as early as January 1977, when Stallone and Schwarzenegger found themselves sitting at the same table at the Golden Globe Awards.

Schwarzenegger had just won the award for Best Acting Debut for the 1976 film Stay Hungry and, according to Stallone, was openly gloating about it. Stallone himself had been nominated in several categories for Rocky.

Later, in a 2017 interview with Variety, Stallone recalled noticing Arnold laughing after Stallone lost in the Best Actor category.

However, Stallone soon had his own reason to celebrate: Rocky was named Best Motion Picture.

“Finally, they announced Rocky — Best Picture. I managed to grab this huge bowl of flowers, threw it in his direction and said, ‘That’s it, the gauntlet is thrown down,’” Stallone recalled. “That’s how the decade-long battle began. I mean, we couldn’t even be in the same galaxy,” he admitted.

In the 2023 Netflix documentary about Stallone, Schwarzenegger himself looked back with a smile on how ridiculous their rivalry could become.

“We were like little kids. Who has the biggest guns and who can hold them with one hand? Who has more muscles, who has more definition, who has less body fat?” Arnold recalled.

According to him, their looks became another source of competition.

“At one point, he became incredibly muscular, and everyone was talking about his body. Of course, that created competition,” Schwarzenegger recalled.

Eventually, however, the war between the two stars came to an end.

Last year, Schwarzenegger said on Radio Andy that their involvement in the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain ultimately helped bring them closer together.

“At one point, we were literally attacking each other, saying nasty things about each other and doing all kinds of stupid things,” the former California governor admitted.

According to Schwarzenegger, everything changed when he began working with Robert Earl and Keith Barish to create the Planet Hollywood franchise.

“And suddenly my lawyer, who was also Sly’s lawyer, called me and said, ‘Arnold, is there any place for Sly in Planet Hollywood?’” the actor recalled. “I said, ‘Actually, that’s a good idea,’ because it could bring us closer together. And I wanted that. By that point, I had outgrown my craziness. So, of course, we were able to make it happen,” Schwarzenegger added.

After two decades of fierce competition, the former rivals eventually became friends. Their reconciliation also developed into a professional partnership: Stallone and Schwarzenegger appeared together in several films in The Expendables franchise, ultimately turning what was once a legendary Hollywood war into one of the best-known friendship stories in the world of action movies.