Sylvester Stallone has become one of the biggest stars in the history of Hollywood, but even he couldn’t get everything he wanted as he was rejected when he asked to be an extra in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.
Stallone is gearing up to be a mobster in the upcoming Paramount+ series Tulsa King, and he spoke to Empire about trying and failing to make that gangster dream come true early on in his career.
“I went to Paramount, and said, ‘Can I be an extra in the wedding scene?’,” Stallone recalled. “They said, ‘Yeah, we don’t know if you’re the type of guy.’ I go, ‘I’m not the type? To play in the background, hiding behind a fucking wedding cake?’”
Now, it’s important to remember that Stallone was still early on in his career when 1972’s The Godfather was being made and he still hadn’t starred in films like Rocky or in First Blood as Rambo.
As for Tulsa King, the series comes from Yellowstone co-creator Tyler Sheridan and Stallone leads the series as Dwight “The General” Manfredi – a “capo freshly released form 25 years in jail, who’s sent to Oklahoma to build up a new base of operations for his criminal family.”
“Finally I get my gangster shot 50 years later, and that’s perfect,” Stallone said. “Everything comes to those who wait.”
Tulsa King premieres on Paramount+ on November 13, 2022. Until then, you can check out Stallone in Samaritan, a film that “hinges on a predictable reveal, and not much else. A mechanical retread of better movies and ideas.”
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.