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00:08It ain't about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
00:14How much you can take and keep moving forward.
00:17That's how winning is done.
00:23You can go far beyond what people think you can do if you believe in it.
00:29He's always wanted to bookend the series on a good note.
00:33It just wasn't over.
00:34You think it's over, then you go back, rehash it in your own mind like an athlete.
00:38You go, maybe I just retired too soon, maybe Rocky just retired too soon.
00:42I was inspired by the George Foreman fight, the last fight he had with Michael Moore.
00:47With a guy that age who can still compete, and only compete can win.
00:51And so it made a lot of people in their mid-ages feel that they can accomplish some things.
00:56The point is, as it said in Rocky, they just want to prove that the lasting age is the heart.
01:01And this is just, you know, a symbolic gesture that when you're young at heart, you're basically in the game.
01:06No matter how old you are, you still have something to offer, which is really what Rocky Balboa is about.
01:12I don't care if you're 55 years old, nothing's impossible.
01:16We can't forget that this is Rocky, and when you see him on screen again, you remember how much you
01:21love this character, and how you're so happy to have him back.
01:24Rocky's an inspirational story for many people around the world, and this is just Rocky getting older, but still the
01:30same heart and motivation and inspiration.
01:32That's what draws a lot of people in, keeps the legacy and the legend of Rocky going.
01:46The first script was actually wrote two years ago, January, New Year of 05, so I met with Erwin Winkler
01:51and Bob Chartoff and Joe Roth,
01:53and the deal was cemented where we would go forward and we would begin filming in the spring, and that's
01:58what we did.
01:58In the beginning of this film, I thought, if his life is still intact, then you really don't have a
02:04launching pad, a starting off point.
02:06But if the most precious thing is taken away from you, and your stability is askew, and you're alone, full
02:12of grief, full of rage, full of anger, you know,
02:15what do I do now with the last chapter of my life? There's your starting off point.
02:19Everybody who read the script said it was a very special story. It reminded him of the dramatic first one.
02:25It's really about him returning to his emotional roots.
02:27What? You haven't peaked yet?
02:31Peaked?
02:32Yeah, peaked.
02:34I don't know. There's still some stuff in the basement.
02:37What basement?
02:39In here.
02:39I think that people need a mountain to climb, literally going out and trying to find a mountain to climb,
02:46which is going to really change, not his life, but the lives of the people around him.
02:51Is the character in an emotional place where he can take on that battle?
02:55And that's what was so interesting about the movie, because you said, yeah, Rocky needs to go on that journey.
03:00And if he needs to go on that journey, then you're rooting for him all the way.
03:02Rocky is a fighter. That is who he is. That is what he does. And that's what fills him up.
03:08And that's what makes him a whole person.
03:11Well, mostly what Sylvester wanted to do was to repeat the success of the first one, and the way he
03:16cast it, he cast real people.
03:19Of course, Bert is back.
03:20I don't know about anybody else, but ice is stupid. And people walking on ice are more stupid.
03:26Bert Young, of course, is extremely unique, and he's the only survivor of, you know, the Rocky 30-year journey.
03:34That's completely flawed, and he seemed to have caught the essence, the cleanliness, the clarity of the first.
03:40Their relationship is really pure. You know he's abusive. You know that Paulie is going to be insensitive.
03:48But in the end, he adores, he worships Rocky. It's his buddy.
03:53He's almost like Rocky Balboa himself. You can't have a Rocky without Bert.
03:56He's Rocky's sidekick. He's intrinsic to this film, to the whole Rocky series.
04:00Then we have Milo, who plays my son. Wonderful actor. Actually, he's as crooked as mine. I don't get it.
04:07Same side, too.
04:09It'd been a while since I'd seen the films, so I had to go back and reacquaint myself with everything
04:13in the character and, like, me personally, where Robert was coming from.
04:16People are going to think you're crazy. I don't mind.
04:20Then we have Little Marie, who was a girl I walked home 30 years ago. He's played by Gerald D.
04:25Hughes.
04:25When was the last time you went dancing? Has it been a while?
04:29Why are you asking me that?
04:30Well, I'm asking because you danced around all these problems. You might as well come and dance with me.
04:34Now, I ain't that good, but, you know, I'm probably better than the average bear.
04:38I don't know where that came from. I don't know.
04:39Believe it or not, she's a European, Irish, but you would believe she's from the streets of Philadelphia and brings
04:45this great...
04:47I mean, I knew it was being considered, but I didn't think in a million years I would really be
04:51in this film.
04:52I said to him before the end of the conversation, I wanted him to know that he was an incredible
04:57influence in my family,
04:58and it really was a huge impact.
05:01And to top it off, we have, you know, at the time, the light-reigning heavyweight champion of the world,
05:06Antonio Tarver.
05:07He's the real deal. And so I picked him and cast him for a reason.
05:11He wanted it to look real, and he didn't want it to look like an actor playing a boxer.
05:15He wanted a boxer boxing.
05:17If you're going to go one time around, why not end it with a real fighter?
05:22Someone who doesn't understand the magic of choreography. He could fight.
05:27We sat down and we talked about the script.
05:29What calms to mind is how much he believed in the script and how much he believed in the actors
05:35that he involved in this movie.
05:36Rocky's an allegory, a tale of a guy who always overcomes the odds.
05:41This last installment is the same formula, but in a contemporary setting.
05:45And these actors, they help contemporize the project.
05:48It's your right to listen to your gut. It ain't nobody's right to say no.
05:51After you earn the right to be where you want to be, you do what you want to do.
05:54I guess directing is just sort of knowing what you want, but trying to convey it to 300 people at
06:02the same time.
06:03So a lot's going to get lost in translation.
06:04This time I'm saying autographs over here. I know personally.
06:07Keep going.
06:08All right, applause. Go.
06:10Woo!
06:12Yes! Yes!
06:15Coming into a job where this guy's been doing this for years, it's like, wow, he's directing, you wrote, and
06:20I'm acting with him.
06:20As an actor, it's hard not to be intimidated or overwhelmed by that, but he's terribly kind with his time.
06:26We did, at the end of the Rockets here, there was that one.
06:29Yo, Adrian, I did it.
06:30I did 10 things.
06:31Yo, Adrian, I did it.
06:34And there's, I just didn't want to do it.
06:37Okay, here we go.
06:39It isn't like he's dealing with an actor or with an electrician or a gaffer.
06:44Everybody's the same.
06:45He'll work you and work you and work you.
06:47But there's no gripes because he's a front-line guy.
06:51It's depressing and freaking cold.
06:55What's the matter with you?
06:57Hey.
06:58Okay, I'm going to go through that again.
06:59Are you ready, guys? Get your focus.
07:01He really will let you know what he wants and what he's looking for and has the patience, which is
07:07so important, to allow you to get that and to understand it.
07:12Yo, Robert.
07:15What is this? What are you doing out so late?
07:17Well, I tried calling, but nothing was picking up.
07:19Something wrong?
07:20No, no, I just wanted to come by and see you in person.
07:24Do you want to come inside?
07:25It's interesting to watch an actor direct the other actors because what the director needs out of them is very
07:33precise because he's playing opposite of in the scene.
07:35It's nice to have a director take you under his wing and say, look, this is what we're looking for.
07:40And you see this little thing that you did, go even further, do a little more.
07:43Hey, this is very cool.
07:45This is cool. Look at this.
07:47I've never seen anything like that before.
07:48This is pretty cool.
07:49This is pretty cool.
07:50If you sit around long enough and watch enough work from other people, you know, you sort of come up
07:55with a style.
07:56He knows what he wants.
07:57He's focused.
07:58He's got a vision.
07:59He's sticking to it.
08:00And he believes in this.
08:01Some scenes which are frenetic and internally disturbing, like when Rocky is being denied by the Boxing Commission, his license,
08:09it's jerky.
08:11It's upsetting.
08:12It's actually a little unsettling to watch.
08:14But that's on purpose because he's off.
08:17He's unbalanced in a sense.
08:19I mean, emotionally upset.
08:21In good conscience, cannot recommend you for a license.
08:24And we therefore deny your application.
08:27I just watch him work, and I'm fascinated by his focus and energy.
08:32I want to take this camera to widen out, and I want to pull back here and get more of
08:35a ranking profile.
08:36Great.
08:37Get more of the gunner.
08:37Yes, I want.
08:38Yeah.
08:38I love that.
08:40It's great.
08:41The other scene when I'm shooting Dixon, it's very light and bright and sterile.
08:47Not a lot of interesting coverage, nothing dramatic in the lighting.
08:51I wanted to show that his life is without color, without shadows, without any ambience.
08:56He's a hard worker.
08:57I mean, he's a very, very hard worker.
08:59And like I said, he's inspired me.
09:01And just work hard, hard as I can.
09:03And know that this time that you have is only a moment, and you've got to capitalize on every minute.
09:09Unlimited energy.
09:10I see this when we're filming at like 3 in the morning when the rest of the crew is going,
09:14I guess, Sly's got his second wind and then his third wind and a fourth wind.
09:17Anybody who says they're tired on this set needs to be fired, because that man is a machine.
09:35You can't do a Rocky Road, including Philadelphia.
09:38Rocky is as synonymous to Philly as the steps, as the art museum, as the bell.
09:44The feel of the city, the look of the people, the atmosphere, the smells, all these things translate onto the
09:50film.
09:51Sly was intent on getting those very small characteristics that you just could not get by shooting in L.A.
09:58I've never been here before.
09:59It was nice how welcoming everybody was and how excited everybody was to have us here.
10:06The Philadelphia people look at Rocky as an existing being, as someone who sort of exists.
10:11Sly is a hero, especially in Philadelphia.
10:14That's what I hear all the time.
10:15I'm from Philadelphia and Rocky's my hero.
10:18They're not yelling for Sylvester Stallone.
10:20Believe me, it's all Rocky, Rocky, Yo, Rock, Rock.
10:23There is no separation between the two identities.
10:26You're one of us.
10:27That's for sure.
10:28You really are.
10:28You just, in a very interesting and very nice way, become symbolic of our city and our people.
10:38So, we're probably about as blue-collar a place as you can get.
10:42That's right.
10:42Our people work hard every day.
10:44Rocky just touched a really, really familiar chord with us.
10:49And, you know, you're that guy.
10:51It was amazing the crowd turnout and just the love in the crowd for Sly.
10:55He is surrounded by people who had to hire extra security guards.
10:59And he doesn't want them.
11:00He keeps pushing through all the guards and the crowd control to sign people's autographs.
11:05People just run up to him and like, can I get you?
11:07And he's, you know, please, I need to work.
11:09They're going to go.
11:10They're going to live.
11:11We've got a lot of work ahead of you, guys.
11:12One more, one more.
11:12Just one more.
11:13I have to sometimes be very aware that they don't want me to act like Sylvester Stallone.
11:18They want you to be Rocky.
11:19People went absolutely crazy.
11:21I mean, screaming Rocky, Rocky, Rocky.
11:25And it was particularly, particularly difficult at the Italian market
11:28because the idea at the Italian market was always to mix with the people that were there.
11:33We knew going in that we would have 20 minutes and then it's going to be impossible.
11:39Sure enough, it was.
11:40And we just had a few shots out of it.
11:44You're not paying attention.
11:48It made it quite a challenge to shoot there.
11:51We weren't able to move as quickly as we had hoped.
11:53Everybody calls him Rocky.
11:55It's amazing.
11:56People don't call him Stallone down here.
11:58He is Rocky.
11:58The Italian market, again, it's like going back to something that a fictional character coming home.
12:04I don't know.
12:05It's hard to put into words or maybe it's easy to put into words.
12:08It was a happening.
12:10But it wasn't Sylvester Stallone's happening.
12:12It was Rocky had come home to roost.
12:15He goes through basically a tour of a lot of the places that he frequented in the first movie.
12:20The idea of revisiting them, I think, brings together a kind of nostalgic feel.
12:27We were shooting the other night at Rocky's old house.
12:30It was a Friday.
12:31We shot until about 7 o'clock in the morning.
12:33I met one of the crew members in a coffee shop the next morning.
12:37He said, for me to be there shooting at Rocky's old house, he said, I felt like I was a
12:43part of history.
12:44One of Sylvester's mantras was, this is going to be as real as possible.
12:47We're going to use real locations.
12:49You know, we had a stage, but we never built anything on it.
12:51We found this house driving around looking at probably about four dozen houses.
12:57And the unique thing this house offered us, because there's so many houses that are similar to it,
13:02what we were given was this wonderful double wide space, two houses essentially.
13:08We presume that Rocky's lived here with Adrian since, you know, early 90s.
13:14So we created all these rooms, kitchen, Rocky's bedroom, Paulie's bedroom.
13:19We did this in sort of a record 10 days to put all the pieces together.
13:23Philadelphia is the location.
13:25It is where the whole story took place.
13:27It's truly a character in the film.
13:31And, uh, that's funny.
13:35You know what's funny?
13:36Those are the, that's Converse.
13:40That's funny.
13:42All right.
13:43You know, we're.
13:46First time?
13:47You see this?
13:47Yeah.
13:49That's funny.
13:51Wow.
14:01Everybody's expecting to see the museum steps.
14:03You know, every day you see people running up there and throwing up their arms.
14:06It's the moment.
14:07Most people that have been to Philly have done it.
14:16Hey, did I get a picture with you?
14:20I think I am.
14:22I was just, I was just playing like you.
14:24Get out of here.
14:25It's incredible.
14:26I was just, I was just pretending to be you.
14:29Hey, I might take me.
14:34All right.
14:35We weren't supposed to work until Sunday because, uh, that's when the snow was going to come.
14:40But I had a feeling it was going to come on Saturday.
14:42So I said, let's just be ready.
14:43Just, let's have someone there from eight o'clock.
14:46I said, by the time they wrapped, it was five in the morning.
14:48These people had three hours sleep.
14:50I said, I'm telling you, I got a gut feeling.
14:52Let's be ready.
14:52Shooting it, you know, it's, it's not that complex.
14:56You're covering him running, running up the stairs.
14:58It's, it's a set of stairs, but it's not the most complex thing that we've done.
15:02But probably the most recognizable scene in the moment.
15:04The crew shows up, a little militant, a little angry.
15:08And I'm, I'm, everyone's tired.
15:09I'm, I can't see straight in no snow.
15:13And we're sitting around and sitting around and I'm looking bad, really bad.
15:18And we're ready to pack up.
15:20Boom.
15:21The sky opens up.
15:22And I mean, it opens up.
15:24These things are like washcloths coming.
15:28And it's like, funk, these big, you know, slices of sky.
15:32We ordered this weather.
15:33I made a call upstairs last night.
15:35This is unbelievable.
15:36I hope we get the shot because it may turn into a blizzard.
15:41Which is not a good thing.
15:43So, if I get to the top, top of the steps, primarily by dog sled, we know we've gone too
15:49far.
15:50The historic moment.
15:51Glad I'm here to see you.
15:52I mean, how could you not be part of this history?
15:55You know what I mean?
15:56And look, it's magical weather.
15:58It's like magic.
16:00When we finished, it stopped.
16:02Now, I'm not a big believer in, you know, divine intervention, but it was extraordinary.
16:08And it was a very emotional time for me.
16:10So, I stood on the steps and I go, this is it.
16:12I said, oh, it's like, you know, you've got to turn this around, man.
16:15So, I'm standing on the steps.
16:16I'm looking at the city.
16:17The sun is going.
16:18And I go, but at least you did it.
16:20At least you did it.
16:22You got here.
16:23You ended it on, who knew it would end on this moment in the snow, on the steps, in Philadelphia.
16:30It's exactly the kind of mood and send-off and story point that works for this film.
16:36But on an emotional level, it hasn't sunk in yet.
16:39This is like the last time I'll ever be wearing these clothes.
16:42Last time I'm a rocky hat.
16:43Last time I'm on the steps.
16:45You know, the legacy, I never thought it would ever end up being a legacy.
16:48But I guess what has come out of it, a pretty universal dream to try to rise up and take
16:54your best shot at life.
16:55When I yell cut, it's over.
16:58It's like a 30-year journey.
17:00Everything I've ever had in my life, everything maybe that I'll accomplish, that is really worthy,
17:07is done.
17:25It's like a 30-year journey.
17:52It's like a 30-year journey.
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