Sylvester Stallone became an action star "by accident".
The 80-year-old actor became a household name playing boxer Rocky Balboa in the Rocky franchise and was also best known for the Rambo movies, and he admitted he knew he'd found a "great opportunity", but he then struggled to break away from the genre.
He told the Sunday Times magazine: “I only went into action by accident. I just saw there was a great opportunity there.”
After making a string of flops, Stallone - who holds a record 12 Golden Raspberry awards, which are given out to the worst in Hollywood - restored his reputation with 2006's sixth Rocky film, Rocky Balboa, and is "grateful" to be stereotyped.
He said: "I realise how grateful I am for the stereotype. [Trying to escape it was a] disaster because that’s not what the audience wants”.
Asked how he made his peace with it, he said: “Don’t try to give them what you want. It’s really simple.”
Stallone admitted he didn't cope well with his movies being mocked by critics.
He said: “Oh, not well. It was very, very bad.”
The Tulsa King star wrote all the Rocky stories, co-wrote all five Rambo films and has writing credits on an additional 10 movies, so felt frustrated by his "musclehead" public image.
He said: “I was considered a musclehead. So people forgot that I wrote. I was just this clunking thug.”
Stallone has always been driven by insecurity and kept forcing himself to make many movies to try and prove himself.
He said: "Even though I wouldn’t admit it at the time, because I’d be too prideful. I had an eternity of insecurities built up from my childhood. You can’t overcome those, they’re there for ever. You’re full of bravado, ‘I’m not afraid of anything.’ Of course you are. It was insecurity that drove me. Always.
“Every one of these titans of the business world, I don’t care what they say, I believe a lot of them in the quiet of the night, if they really were honest with you and they weren’t being recorded, would admit insecurity drives them. The fear of being dismissed. ‘I’m going to prove to you.’ It’s a rage, a kind of intellectual rage. They’re driven by anger.”
And though he and Arnold Schwarzenegger are now friends, he admitted their legendary long-running rivalry was genuine and they "needed" one another to compete against.
He said: "We were at each other’s throats, big time. It wasn’t a joke. It was like life and death. We should have been together in the Roman Colosseum.
“It’s like when one fighter insults the other, he’s going to train so much to put a beating on the other. We needed each other, absolutely.”
