‘The Steps’: Sylvester Stallone Remembers Filming ‘Rocky’ in Excerpt From New Memoir

Rocky: 50th Anniversary

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When Sylvester Stallone‘s stubbornness and fortitude paid off, he won the part of Rocky, which he had fought so hard for. Now it was time to begin filming and, beyond that, to prove that he was right: He was the only person who could embody this role. This excerpt from The Steps details how it began.

I’m always amazed by people who have total recall and remember every little thing that happened to them during big moments in their lives. That’s just not me. During important moments, it feels like I’m living in the middle of a storm, which is what making a movie is like, a whirling storm. Or at least that’s what it was beginning to feel like at the start of production. I remember the first day of filming was freezing cold. It was early in the morning. Before sunrise. We were shooting running scenes.

My wardrobe was an old sweatsuit that I’d had for years. With a magic marker I wrote “Italian Stallion” on the back of it. When I was growing up, I always wore these black high-top Converse sneakers, which were quite unique at the time, so I added a pair of those to my outfit. Like I said, Rocky was wearing everything Sly used to wear.

Harper Collins Books

We didn’t have motorhomes or trailers for the actors, so I got changed in the “honey wagon,” which is a kind of three- or four-stall outhouse on wheels that film productions sometimes use when they’re in a location with no bathroom facilities. The one we had was very tight. You could really only stand up in it. I’d managed to find a short stool to kneel down on to fix my socks, and in that moment I felt this overwhelming rush of emotion. What was it, fear or exhilaration? I tried to collect myself. This was what I had been waiting for my whole life. This was the do-or-die moment.

Then the doubts started to creep back in. My heart was pounding out of my chest. There’s a part of me that was reluctant to challenge the reality that existed on the other side of that honey wagon door. As long as I never walked out there onto those cold streets, I would always be able to say that I could have made it, but I chose not to. I could fake it about why I didn’t make it. Just be happy to live a lie.

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I got really upset with myself. I began to berate myself for absorbing this negativity. Now was not the time to give in to fear that I was creating. Now was the time to grab it by the throat and throw it away.

I imagine it was similar to those terrifying prefight moments that fighters experience as they wait to make their entrance. Every negative thought you can think of is clashing with every positive possibility you ever dared to imagine. It’s an absolute war going on in your mind.

There was a knock on the door.

“You ready, Sly?”

“Sly isn’t, but Rocky is,” I yelled back.

Reprinted from The Steps, copyright ©2026 by Sylvester Stallone, William Morrow Books. Reprinted by permission from the publisher.

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