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"I Play Rocky," a film tracing the path of a then-unknown Sylvester Stallone as he fought to make the movie that would launch his career, premiered Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it received a standing ovation.
The film is directed by Peter Farrelly, who won an Academy Award for the 2018 film "Green Book." It recounts Stallone's early attempts to break into Hollywood and the circumstances that led him to write the screenplay for "Rocky," the story of a boxer who gets an unlikely shot at the title, a plot that mirrored Stallone's own situation at the time.
According to the film, Stallone was in financial difficulty during this period, at one point selling his dog because he could not afford to feed it. He turned down studio offers for the script unless he was cast in the lead role himself.
"The depth that Stallone had gone to before he made this movie, and the battle was even when he was shooting the movie, it all got me, because I didn't know it all," Farrelly told AFP on the red carpet in Toronto.
Farrelly said he aimed to convey the same message in his film as the 1976 original: "Just hang in there, be tough, you take some shots, but if you have integrity, you will win in the end."
Made on a limited budget, "Rocky" went on to become the highest grossing film of 1976. It received 10 Academy Award nominations and won three, including Best Picture, establishing Stallone as a leading actor.
Before the screening, Farrelly thanked Stallone for approving the project. "I said from the beginning I'm not going to make the movie unless Sylvester Stallone signs off on it," Farrelly told AFP. "And he read the script and said 'go ahead,' and he saw the movie, he was very happy, thank God."
The role of Stallone is played by 27 year old actor Anthony Ippolito, who obtained the part by submitting an audition tape before casting had officially begun, according to Farrelly.
"The movie shows that it's not really that easy to be an actor sometimes, and it's just absolutely surreal," Ippolito said.
The Toronto International Film Festival runs through September 20.
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