Sylvester Stallone: Portrait of a Son, Icon, and Man
To call Sylvester Stallone a film star is only the beginning of any conversation about him. Movies such as Rocky and Rambo have made him an American icon. But even that barely scrapes the surface of who he really is.
In Sly, a new documentary film available to watch now on Netflix, director Thom Zimny takes a deep dive into Sylvester Stallone’s story. He starts with the actor we all know before introducing us to the man behind the persona: Stallone the writer, director, and even, painter. He goes further still, in fact, right to the heart of Stallone’s life: his relationship with his father, a relationship that for Thom redefined how he saw Stallone’s films.
In this episode of Factual America, Thom joins Matthew Sherwood to discuss Sly, both man and film. Their conversation takes them from the beginning of Thom’s relationship with Stallone to its full flowering. Thom describes his approach to interviewing Stallone, and the energy that the latter brought to their conversation. He reveals how his work with Bruce Springsteen helped him navigate Sly, and the great trust that Stallone put in him, made real with a significant gift. Along the way, Thom shares some of the surprises that came out of making Sly, and even Stallone’s musicality.
Join Matthew as he and Thom Zimny pull the curtain back on the real Sylvester Stallone – Sly by name, but open hearted by nature.
“Sly went beyond a biopic for me because I felt like there was a chance to show an artist that gets lost with just a shorthand version of their life... I love the details that get lost, that make a film universal.” – Thom Zimny
Timestamps
00:00 – Trailer for Sly
02:22 – Matthew Sherwood introduces this episode’s guest – Thom Zimny, director of Sly
03:49 – Thom Zimny shares his excitement about seeing Sly at the Toronto International Film Festival with Sylvester Stallone and his family
05:29 – Thom explains what Sly is (and isn’t) about
07:46 – Exploring the question of how one makes a film about an icon
09:55 – Unexpected ‘gifts’: Stallone’s house move and old tape recordings
13:33 – What surprised Thom most in his conversations with Stallone
16:37 – Sylvester Stallone’s self-revealing in Sly
20:18 – How Thom became involved with the Sly project
21:47 – What it was like working with Stallone
24:39 – Why Thom decided to make Sly a film rather than docu-series
26:11 – Thom discusses similarities between Sly and his other, music related docs
28:29 – Discussing Thom’s next documentary about Willie Nelson
Resources:
Sly
MovieMaker Magazine
Innersound Audio
Alamo Pictures
Connect with Thom Zimny
More from Factual America:
Arnold: Exploring Schwarzenegger‘s Three Lives
Becoming Rocky: How Sylvester Stallone Became a Star
Wayne Shorter: Visionary, Innovator, Icon and Human Being
Uprooted: American History Through Jazz Dance
Transcript for Factual America Episode 145: Sylvester Stallone: Portrait of a Son, Icon, and Man
Matthew Sherwood 00:00 (02:22)
This is Factual America. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood. Each week, I watch a hit documentary and then talk with the filmmakers and their subjects. Sly offers an intimate look at Sylvester Stallone, paralleling his inspirational underdog story with the indelible characters he has brought to life. Join us as we talk with Emmy and Grammy winning director Thom Zimny. We discuss how he approached a doc about a cultural icon, and how he drew on his experiences bringing other larger-than-life characters, such as Bruce Springsteen and Johnny Cash, to the big screen. We even managed to talk a little bit about another cultural icon, Willie Nelson. Stay tuned.
Matthew Sherwood 00:48
Thom Zimny, welcome to Factual America. How are things with you?
Thom Zimny 00:52
Great, nice to meet you, Matthew.
Matthew Sherwood 00:54
Yeah, it's nice to meet you. Just to remind our listeners and viewers we're talking about Sly, the feature documentary; premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier and releases on Netflix on November 3. So, welcome, again to Factual America, it's great to get you on, and congratulations on Toronto, and also the release and getting this to Netflix. You must be quite happy about the success of the film so far.
Thom Zimny 01:22 (03:49)
I'm thrilled. And the Toronto experience was great because there's nothing like sitting in a theatre and actually sitting next to Sylvester Stallone and his family and watching it with the audience. That is something. When you're making the film in the edit room, sometimes you'll let yourself dream a little bit and that was one of those dream moments come true. And just watching it projected with an audience is always a special treat. And Toronto Film Festival was my third time there, and it's a great place to have that first experience.
Matthew Sherwood 01:57
I mean, just out of curiosity, you had Sly and his family there. Had they seen it? Had they seen a rough cut? Or was this their first time to see it - the final version?
Thom Zimny 02:07
You know, Toronto wasn't the first time for Sly and his family to see it. I went to Sly's house a couple of times and showed him the film in the course of the editing. And that was a really helpful thing because I think it increased our trust together and the dialogue that we had in making the film. Early on, I checked in with him and we watched it and then afterwards, he had given me a bunch of images, and some video that really ended up to be important parts of telling this story.
Matthew Sherwood 02:45
Now, usually the first question I ask is, what is the film all about? Give us a synopsis. Now, obviously, it's called Sly, it's about Sylvester Stallone, but maybe you can give us a little bit of [an] idea of maybe a bit beyond that. It's not just about - it's not a biopic of Sylvester Stallone...
Thom Zimny 03:02 (05:29)
It's not a biopic. I think that's the place to start for me. Emotionally, I never wanted to do a biopic. I was never interested in the sort of Wikipedia breakdown of born here exactly, and then this film was made, and this film. You know, dealing with a life that way, you lose a lot of important emotional details. And I felt like this story I wanted to make with Sly just revealed a side that gets lost when you see him only as an icon. And that side that was lost was an artist who was on this amazing journey, still is on this journey, and a renaissance man who, you know, paints, writes, directs films and is hungry to create but also to understand his past and is just full of energy now, whether it's Tulsa King or whatever projects he's doing. Sly went beyond a biopic for me because I felt like there was a chance to show an artist that gets lost with just a shorthand version of their life; that, from Rocky to this, to this. You know, I love the things that - I love the details that get lost, that make a film universal, and Sly's relationship with his father was a really important detail that I went to again and again because I felt like an audience could understand that, and it grounds you to the human experience and frustrations and love and sometimes conflicts we have with parents, and also how that affects the adult later. So, when I looked at Sly's father, I realised that all the body of work that I had seen before as a casual fan suddenly changed. That's the education that you have when you make a film with an open mind and stumble on things.
Matthew Sherwood 05:07 (07:46)
So, how did you - I mean, you didn't know for sure; you know, I imagine going into this, you don't know what kind of exactly - what access you're gonna get or what Sly's - Sylvester Stallone's - going to give you. So, how do you go about making a film about someone, like you said, is an icon.
Thom Zimny 05:23
It is a scary thing to look at from the POV of, I had no relationship with him, I don't know what access I'm going to have. And I know I want to tell a real story. So, I didn't have a clue of what I was walking into, but I had a sense from a couple of conversations, that there was a full life there that had not been shared in the books that I had read or things that I've been reading over the years. And I approached it with [the] most important tool in editing, which is, I approached it with a conversation - a conversation where I at times, I would just listen; at times, I would maybe give a sense that I had an experience near it without taking it away from him, and I just started to have these four or five hour sessions with him at his house. And I realised as a filmmaker, I could not contain him in a chair, he had too much energy. So, I built it in a way that he could walk into a room, and the only other person visible besides me was my cameraman. And in that, you get to that place of conversation and intimacy where you're just talking. Because I'm across from him, I'm not sitting in a set with a crew behind me looking at him, it's not a stage setting, it's a home setting. And in that home was all his history around the office. In the office that I filmed at his house, you could see images of Rocky, and he ended up just being very spontaneous in that room and would pick up something, it would trigger a memory, I would throw questions at him, and it became our space to create.
Matthew Sherwood 07:24
How many sessions did you have with him?
Thom Zimny 07:26
I think I had about seven sessions with him.
Matthew Sherwood 07:29 (09:55)
And did you know he was moving, you know, moving house; he was going to be - I mean, that becomes this backdrop to the film, which is very interesting, was that a surprise as well? Or was that sort of planned?
Thom Zimny 07:41
No. The theme of moving is in the Sly film. And it's something that I stumbled on. It was a detail that was shared with me by Sly's producer, Braden Aftergood, that he would be moving, and I immediately knew that that as a visual would be very important. This idea that the office I went to - these workers would come in and wrap up his history, I became very excited because I knew that that's a great visual metaphor for change. And also, I could tell his story throughout the different decades, by showing some of the imagery being boxed up and contained, and knew that this office was a fantastic set that just happened to have, just happened to fall into my lap. And with documentaries, you go really prepared in, you know your subject, and you read as much as you can, but you really have to, from my point of view, step back and let mistakes happen. Step back and let someone tell you about a move and then adjust. I - with my work with Bruce Springsteen, that's something I was able to learn from that experience from working with him and John Landau, where you look at your environment, and what's being thrown at you, and you adapt. Is this for the film? Is this a gift that the film gods are throwing us? So, Sly moving was one of those gifts, and I didn't want to miss out on it.
Matthew Sherwood 09:22
And then - he even talks, I think at some point, he talks about moving and how that just sort of churns up all these memories and things, and you turn up some of these old cassette tapes. I mean, that must have been - how did - you know, walk us through that, because that must have been a little bit of a chance moment of gold.
Thom Zimny 09:41
Yeah, finding the cassette tapes was a really powerful tool, again to use in telling his story. And it came from a conversation with Braden Aftergood where he mentioned that he was at Sly's house, and Sly opened his desk up and he's got a tonne of cassettes because he would record his interviews in the early days, so that he would have proof of exactly what he said if something was distorted. So, I realised that this would be an opportunity. And this moment of reflection of hearing your own voice as a young actor and the ideas that you had, this would be an opportunity, on camera, to step back into time, and have Sly look at himself and listen to His voice, listen to his ideas. And it became an important part in the documentary because there was a moment where Sly was afraid to use the word 'love'. And in that moment, I am able to call him on it and say, that young guy could not say it. And he goes, You're right. And that was very much the tone of our conversations, where things were unfolding, where things were happening in the moment, but at the same time, I would push him to give me an answer and understanding. And you could see him collaborating with me, by going to that place of truth.
Matthew Sherwood 11:07 (13:33)
And what surprised you most when you're in these conversations you're having with him?
Thom Zimny 11:11
I think one of the things that surprised me the most was the body of work. When you look at these notebooks in his office, and you're thumbing through Rocky scripts, and he's handwritten them. And he - you see lines that end up pared down almost poetic in their simplicity. And you see early versions of it, and you see that this man was carving out a world that was different than his own experience, different than his childhood. He was creating characters that represented a world far beyond his experiences. Rocky was a character that had a chance at something really big, not winning a fight, but a chance of being loved, and seeing the world beyond just the interpretation that the world had given him. That is a reflection of Sly in his childhood. That was the biggest surprise; that his body of work was unpacking so much of his own life.
Matthew Sherwood 12:16
Right, right.
Thom Zimny 12:18
The idea of Rambo and taking that character and having at the end of the film, that monologue where he works with the voices of other vets and again, returns this message of hope, that being a constant theme was fascinating how it would come back again and again in a lot of his creative decisions. So, spending time in the room with him, everything changed. Spending time in the room with him, I realised I had to go back at the films and look at them completely different than just my adolescent or adult experiences. This was a filmmaker that was not being seen in a way that I want; I wanted to just re-examine his body of work and give him the chance to drive that narrative. So, everyone in the film was really in Sly's life, or their life was really changed by it. So, that's why I ended up in the space of those voices, especially Tarantino who completely understands and could contextualise Sly as a filmmaker, you know, the best.
Matthew Sherwood 13:33 (16:37)
Yeah. And I mean, I think we've actually had a director on - long time ago - who had done some work with Stallone on some short docs and things about, like, the making of Rocky, and even did the Frank Stallone doc, but, yeah; so, what was interesting about that it was, you know, for me at least as somebody who watched him was like, Wow, this Stallone's not someone - there's something more here than I realised, but what I realised with your film is that it's, you know, I didn't - I thought, Okay, I'll go in this; I already know he's much more a rounded individual than we've been led to believe. But it was, I mean, he is really revealing Himself to you in a way that, I don't know, I don't think he's ever done before, has he?
Thom Zimny 14:20
Well, I feel like the recent experience at TIFF, I got to be on stage with Sly and that was a great experience to hear him talk about the process from his words. And if I was to paraphrase what he said was that, you know, at times it's hard to watch the film. I don't even remember saying that. I don't know how you got me to say it. And in that what I hear is a trust that he gave me and in some ways it was a collaboration because he was in this dance with me and we were in the space and we didn't go for the sound bites and the tidbits that have been said and told before. I was familiar with some of the other films or some of the other things that had been written about with Rocky. And I felt like I didn't want to go there again if it's been out there, and to try to go to this place that goes a little deeper. And also, you know, you're chasing - when you're making these films, you're chasing things you're trying to understand, like the relationship between father and son, and its impact on a body of work is something I relate to. And the choices that we make and how, sometimes later on you can see certain cycles, or certain repetition, or certain things still eat at you. And with Sly, he had a lot of those beats of returning to the theme of his father trying to either be in competition with him or upstage him. So, I felt like the interview process was one long conversation; was like nothing I have ever experienced as a filmmaker, and I had no expectations going in that I'd be able to get to this place of truth. I'm really grateful that he just gave me that precious thing, which was time. If these were controlled interviews in a 30 minute segment in some hotel room, properly lit, it would not be the film. So, you know, he really gave me a lot.
Matthew Sherwood 16:46
I think that's a good point to give our listeners and viewers a break. So, we'll be right back with Thom Zimny, the director of Sly, documentary feature, releases on Netflix on November 3.
Factual America Midroll 16:59
You're listening to Factual America. Subscribe to our mailing list, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or X, to keep up-to-date with new releases or upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the programme, our guests, and the team behind the production. Now back to Factual America.
Matthew Sherwood 17:17 (20:18)
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with Thom Zimny, award-winning director of Sly. The documentary feature releases on Netflix on November 3. We've been talking obviously about Sylvester Stallone and the inner side of him that - I mean, I think I mentioned it about a previous podcast that he came across to me that he was like this renaissance man, but we didn't - what you've also shown is this other side to - this inner side of him that many of us maybe weren't - well, certainly most of us, I think, weren't aware of, but how did you become involved with this project? How did this come about?
Thom Zimny 17:56
I was contacted by Sly's producer, Braden Aftergood, who works with Balboa Productions, and Braden had seen some of the films I had made with Bruce Springsteen, one in particular was Western Stars and he really liked the tone of that, and though it's very different than the Sly film, he just felt like it captured a sort of honesty and a cinematic feel that he was interested in exploring with telling Sly's story. And then the next part of the process was meeting Braden and Sly on a Zoom and having a 45 minute chat. And then I flew out to LA and met Sly at his house, and that's where we spent a lot of time. And I started to understand that this was gonna be much bigger than I could even imagine. In that first initial sit-down at his house, in his office, I realised I want to film in here; I want to have...
Matthew Sherwood 18:59
Right.
Thom Zimny 18:59
... the energy of this conversation that's happening be in the movie. And it's what I chased every day that I was with him filming, which is a spontaneity, an energy, and also a sense of surprise. You, like, you didn't know where he was gonna go in the conversation next.
Matthew Sherwood 19:03 (21:47)
And what's it like working with him? I mean, you've already talked about how much he gave you in terms of the conversations you had, but he doesn't strike me as someone who would give free rein easily, maybe, you know, this is a man who incessantly rewrites scripts, as you've already noted. So, you know, he's used to really scripting things and in a good way. How was that working with him in terms of that process?
Thom Zimny 19:48
I didn't know what to expect in terms of Sly being a filmmaker and screenwriter; what sort of control is he going to want or have on the project, and Braden had talked to me early on that he was just going to meet with me and make the film and when I came to a place of being comfortable, he thought it'd be a great idea to share it with him. That was the conversation. There was no restrictions. I was not told one single restriction. And I also think that they instinctually understood I was not by my questions, but also my body of work - I've made films on Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, and also recently, Willie Nelson - where I'm not chasing the salacious. I'm not interested in breaking down the dates and Wikipedia version of a career, and I'm not interested in just hitting, you know, the tabloid beats, I want to try to get to a place that you feel like you know the man, and he gave me that trust. And at the end of the day, he had literally no notes, except for, there's a couple of stills here that I feel like I can give you better. And there's a really poignant moment that, he sent me video of his dad, before his dad passed, and, you know, when I think about what he offered in that area of collaborating is not only the interviews and the level of honesty, but he also, you know, looked at the film and realised, Oh, you could use some early stills of me in a way that no one's ever seen this. And this is an interesting point I didn't think about and so, there was a lot of things I'm grateful for as a person to experience but also as a filmmaker to share a story. And both Sly and Jennifer welcomed me. To view the film, and the experience I had with them in showing them the film, though nerve racking, was one of my favourite experiences, because it's an intimate story and you don't know how these things are gonna land and I never take them for granted and...
Matthew Sherwood 22:12 (24:39)
And part of this intimacy, I mean, did you ever - did it ever even come up - feature versus a docu-series? Or, you know, I mean, filmmakers always tell me, you just produce what, you know, the story gives you, really, or you know.
Thom Zimny 22:25
I think it's a great question. I feel like for me, I am - I always felt that this was a film. And it had the emotional arc of a film. I didn't see it as a docu-series, because I wasn't breaking down every single chapter and portraying the outside world at times. So, that language, even the way I was shooting it, I always felt I'm making a movie. This is a movie. And for me a movie lives in that space of a 95 minute ride. And it's a journey and Sly - I didn't want to unpack his life in a way that felt segmented. And that's the emotional way that a series idea would feel.
Matthew Sherwood 23:15
Yeah. And you've already mentioned, you know, you've done a lot of work with Springsteen, you've made certainly award-winning docs and you've also, you know, big subjects like Cash. And now, you've mentioned Willie Nelson, but what is - so Stallone's outside of music - but, well, how does he - do you compare? Does he - is it - you know, are these larger-than-life people? Are they all this kind of very similar when it all gets down to it?
Thom Zimny 23:45 (26:11)
You know, there is a similarity of the lost father, in a lot of the body of work that I've had, where you go to the space of Johnny Cash, when I was making that film, his relationship with his father was really important in connecting to music, but also a driving force of trying to understand himself. And his father was a tough character who, you know, Johnny talked about at length. That theme of that connection with looking at your life and your body of work, and exploring it in either songwriting or filmmaking, it comes up again and again. It's obviously in the work of Bruce Springsteen. When I was doing Springsteen on Broadway, there was a great moment where he did talk about his relationship with his father and it's in the lyrical - it's in the lyrics and the content of the words of many of the records. So, this is something I've stumbled into, and I never imagined it with Sly. So, though it's not music, there is a universal theme that I keep stumbling into and for me as a filmmaker, it's a great thing because each time I explore these stories, I have better understanding of myself and also some of the things I connect to: my place in the world. So, Sly is not a musician, but he was extremely musical. If you listen to the beauty of his interviews, he is jazz, his voice, pure music, his writing is musical. There are elements of Sly's dedication to the craft that I recognise as a familiar trait that Bruce has. And they came from that era of the 70s. And also, just not always been understood. There's a lot of similarities there. But the theme of a lost father and sort of chasing that idea a little bit as artists and adults unpacking the world is something in the body of my work.
Matthew Sherwood 26:03 (28:29)
Okay. Well, we're actually - speaking of your body of work, we're coming to the end of our time together, but I just want to have a quick chat with you about, if I may, about Willie Nelson and family, because is that released yet?
Thom Zimny 26:20
It's not released yet. It'll be out soon and announced. Again, I co-directed this with Oren Moverman. It's a four-part series. Willie's life really did go beyond just the structure of a 90 minute film. And ironically, it does talk about Willie's upbringing, where he grew up with his grandparents. So, they...
Matthew Sherwood 26:46
Yeah, Abbott, Texas.
Thom Zimny 26:47
In Abbott, Texas, and - but we interviewed about 80 people, and it really is a magical tale that is pure Willie. Pure Willie.
Matthew Sherwood 26:59
Well, what's great is, usually I ask people, can they tell me what their next project is and most of the time they say, Oh, I can't yet, you know, and at least I know, we've got something - you've got Willie, that's going to drop here shortly. So, definitely - I'm a Willie fan, so I'm really looking forward to this. I actually know some people who were looking at making a very niche Willie Nelson doc at the time, and they started snooping around. And I think they were running into you guys, because people were like, Well, are you with the group that's already making the documentary? But no, I think it's - definitely looking forward to it. And if we, if you've got the time, we'd love to have you on again to discuss that. So, thanks, again, so much, Thom, for coming on to Factual America, it's been a real joy. And just to remind our listeners, we've been talking with Thom Zimny, the award-winning director of Sly. It's a documentary feature that drops on Netflix on November 3, do check it out, it's well worth it, I can guarantee you. So, Thom, thanks again.
Thom Zimny 28:02
Thank you.
Matthew Sherwood 28:09
Thanks again for joining us on Factual America. A big shout out to everyone at Innersound Audio in York, England for their great studio and fine editing and production skills. A big thanks to Amy Ord, our podcast manager, who ensures we continue getting great guests onto the show, and that everything otherwise runs smoothly. Finally, a big thanks to you our listeners. Please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas, whether it is on YouTube, social media, or directly by email. And please also remember to like us and share us with your friends and family, wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America, signing off.
Factual America Outro 28:50
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