Sylvester Stallone says he 'never fully recovered' from the injuries he sustained on the set of the first 'Expendables' movie: 'It did such a number on my body'
Sylvester Stallone said the injuries he sustained on the set of "The Expendables" still affect him.
He broke his neck on the set of the 2010 film and needed a metal plate inserted.
"Truthfully, I never fully recovered," Stallone said in the Netflix documentary "Sly."
In the new Netflix documentary, "Sly," Sylvester Stallone reflects on his over 50-year Hollywood career.
Though the actor is perhaps best known for his roles in the 1976 film "Rocky," the 1982 film "Rambo: First Blood," and their resulting franchises, in 2010, he launched yet another action franchise, "The Expendables," which he directed and cowrote.
Stallone said that it was on the set of that movie — which has since spawned three sequels — that he sustained his most serious and long-term injuries, which still affect him to this day.
Stallone, who performs his own stunts, was 62 in 2009 when he broke his neck shooting a fight scene with the wrestling star "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. The fight scene resulted in Stallone needing a permanent metal plate in his neck and surgery for a hairline fracture.
"Truthfully, I never fully recovered," Stallone, now 77, said, reflecting on the injury in an interview for "Sly."
"It did such a number on my body, I've never been the same. Never."
With the event nearly 14 years past him, he said he's asked himself, "Was it really worth it?"
"Are you doing this for people's approval? Really, that's almost like a child needing a pat on their head by their father. That's constant encouragement. But it's true," he said.
Stallone's rival turned friend and "Expendables" costar Arnold Schwarzenegger also weighed in on the accident.
"It's not uncommon for an action hero to get injured on set, but I think it is clear that Sly drove it to the extreme," Schwarzenegger said. "I thought it was too much."
The news of Stallone's injury was not made public until after filming had concluded and the actor had begun promoting the movie in 2010.
He told FHM magazine, "Man, it was seven guys, kicking each other's ass, one guy tougher than the next. No joke, our stunt guys were begging for mercy," The Guardian reported.
"Actually, my fight with Stone Cold Steve Austin was so vicious that I ended up getting a hairline fracture in my neck. I'm not joking," he continued.
"I haven't told anyone this, but I had to have a very serious operation afterwards. I now have a metal plate in my neck."
Stallone's character, Barney Ross, was billed as the main character in the first three "Expendables" films but had significantly less screen time in the fourth film, "Expend4bles," which was released this summer, owing to the fact that the actor officially walked away from the franchise with a $20 million payday in March 2017.
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