Sylvester Stallone has had an amazing career, so it’s little surprise that he would become the subject of a high-profile documentary. But Sylvester Stallone himself was surprised by the new Netflix documentary Sly, as he says it actually caused him to take a new look at himself. And he’s sharing that experience while praising the documentary.
In a short Instagram video that is equal parts promo for Sly and a personal reaction to it. Stallone talks about how the new film was not at all the documentary that he was expecting to make, as he assumed it would center on his body of work, and not really himself as a person. Stallone said…
You get to a certain point in your life and you feel as though you are beyond being surprised. That you’ve experienced everything and you pretty much know who you are and how you got there and why you interpret the world a certain way. This extraordinary documentary caught me off guard, I must admit it. I wasn’t prepared for it. I thought it would be more of the typical. You relive your life, you talk about experiences, quite often that would center on the film.
Instead Sly uses the films of Stallone as a window to understand the man, and vice versa. Certainly viewers will learn a great deal about Sylvester Stallone after watching Sly, but I’m not sure anybody expected Sly himself to learn a great about himself. And yet, that appears to be what happened.
Director Thom Zimny has discussed that Stallone's childhood trauma had a major impact on his films. It seems that perhaps Stallone himself never understood that, Stallone continued, speaking about the director saying…
You opened me up and you made me realize why I do things, why I see the world a certain way, why I’m drawn toward a certain kind of philosophy and a type of interpretation of the world. How I see certain films, how I wish the world was, and what caused that.
Most fans probably would have been happy with a documentary that did “center on the film.” The films are the reasons Stallone has so many fans, but clearly, there was an idea to try and do something more. Based on the responses to Sly’s Instagram, fans are loving the new film as well. Check out Stallone’s complete statement below.
Sly is currently one of the top movies on Netflix, so a lot of people are getting to see this look at Stallone and not just the movies he has made, but in a way that by his own admission, helps to explain why he makes the movies that he does. While the documentary makes for a powerful retrospective, Stallone isn't done yet, as fans still have many upcoming Stallone movies to look forward to. Perhaps the actor will come at those films with a new perspective on himself now.
