What Is I Play Rocky? Anthony Ippolito Recreates Sylvester Stallone’s Fight to Star in Rocky

I Play Rocky is turning one of Hollywood’s most famous underdog stories back into a movie: how Sylvester Stallone wrote Rocky, refused to let the studio separate him from the lead role, and bet his future on playing Rocky Balboa himself.

The new biographical drama premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2026, with Anthony Ippolito playing a young Stallone. Amazon MGM Studios says the film opens in select theaters on November 6 and expands later in November.

The most interesting part is that Ippolito did not approach the role like a simple impression. In a recent PEOPLE interview, he said he trained for more than a year and a half and was genuinely nervous when he finally met Stallone.

What is I Play Rocky about?

The film goes back to the period before Rocky became an Oscar-winning phenomenon, when Stallone was still an unknown actor trying to get a deeply personal script made.

Festival descriptions and Amazon MGM’s official synopsis focus on the central gamble: Stallone could sell the screenplay, but he wanted to play Rocky himself. The film dramatizes the resistance he faced and the decision to keep holding out for the lead role even when saying yes to a safer deal would have been easier.

That makes this a different story from the one Stallone is currently telling in his memoir The Steps. The memoir looks further back at the childhood, school expulsions and instability that shaped him. I Play Rocky concentrates on the moment that history collided with a professional opportunity.

If you came here because you want the earlier part of the story, read what Stallone has revealed about the childhood behind Rocky.

Who plays Sylvester Stallone in I Play Rocky?

Anthony Ippolito plays Stallone. He told PEOPLE that preparing for the role took more than a year and a half, including months of physical work before production.

His path into the movie was unusually on-theme. TheWrap reported that Ippolito first heard about the project through a news article and made his own audition tape before he even had the full script. In other words, the actor playing a man who forced open his own opportunity also tried to force open the audition door.

The cast includes AnnaSophia Robb as Sasha Czack, Stephan James as Carl Weathers, P.J. Byrne as producer Irwin Winkler, Jay Duplass as director John G. Avildsen, and Matt Dillon as Stallone’s father.

What did Stallone think of Anthony Ippolito playing him?

Ippolito told PEOPLE that he spoke with Stallone before filming and found him supportive. After the movie was finished, Stallone and his wife Jennifer Flavin watched it, and Ippolito said Stallone responded positively to the performance.

That still leaves one question fans are actively debating: how involved was Stallone in I Play Rocky really? His own “zero to do with it” comment and Peter Farrelly’s account of getting Stallone’s approval do not sound identical, so we separated that question into its own follow-up.

That matters because this is not a documentary. It is a dramatized version of a famous origin story, so viewers should expect compression, reconstructed dialogue and storytelling choices. The useful question is not whether every scene happened exactly as shown. It is whether the film captures the real conflict at the center of the story: an unknown writer-actor refusing to give up the part he believed only he could play.

Why is I Play Rocky getting attention now?

The TIFF premiere gave the film a fresh wave of attention. The Associated Press reported an enthusiastic festival response, while Variety described the movie as a crowd-pleasing account of how Stallone dreamed up, wrote and fought to star in Rocky.

There is also visible curiosity around Ippolito himself. A recent r/movies thread showing him as Stallone drew more than 1,600 upvotes, with much of the discussion focused on his resemblance, voice and whether the movie can make a familiar Hollywood legend feel fresh again.

That discussion is useful because it shows the real challenge of the film. Everyone already knows the ending. Rocky gets made. Stallone becomes famous. The suspense has to come from making the period before success feel uncertain again.

What I keep noticing

Success stories become strangely tidy once we know they worked.

A decision that later looks visionary can look reckless while you are still living inside it. That does not mean every refusal is brave or every stubborn bet is wise. It means hindsight removes the part where nobody knew whether the person was right.

That is why this story sits naturally beside How to Begin Again Without Shame. Starting over, rebuilding identity and protecting a new direction can feel unimpressive while it is still small. The meaning often becomes obvious later.

Sources

• Amazon — I Play Rocky trailer, cast and release information
• PEOPLE — Anthony Ippolito on preparing to play Sylvester Stallone
• Variety — TIFF review of I Play Rocky
• Associated Press — TIFF response to I Play Rocky
• TheWrap — Anthony Ippolito on making his own audition tape

Featured image: Sylvester Stallone at the 1978 premiere of F.I.S.T., photographed by Alan Light. CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.