EXCLUSIVE: Sylvester Stallone's Biopic 'Has Left Him Fearing Death'

Anthony Ippolito, 27, plays the young Stallone in director Peter Farrelly's film, which is due in US theaters in November after screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Asked about watching his younger life recreated on screen, Stallone said: "Kind of mixed because I'm going, 'I'm not dead yet. Aren't we jumping the gun a little bit?'"

The actor made the remark during an appearance at 92NY in New York while promoting his memoir, The Steps, which arrives as Rocky celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Stallone's reservations softened dramatically after he saw footage of Ippolito portraying him – and discovered the resemblance was so convincing that even he was briefly fooled.

He said: "I actually thought it was me the first moment; there were a couple of angles. I go to my daughter and say, 'That's unbelievable.'"

The Amazon MGM Studios film revisits Stallone's transformation from a struggling unknown actor into one of Hollywood's biggest stars.

Stallone wrote the screenplay for Rocky and famously fought to play Rocky Balboa himself despite resistance.

The 1976 movie ultimately transformed his career and became the foundation of a franchise spanning decades.

But Stallone stressed he had no creative involvement in the new film and initially decided simply to watch from the sidelines.

He added: "I said, 'I'll just sit back and watch.' I talked to the kid. I said, 'If you want any questions, here I am,' and that was it. But they did it all on their own."

Ippolito has described meeting the man he was preparing to portray as an intimidating experience after spending more than a year studying Stallone's life and mannerisms.

He said: "I got to speak to Stallone prior to making the movie. It was a lot to take in because I'd spent over a year, by that point, studying him.

"It was very overwhelming and daunting. There's a lot going on in my head, but I was really just trying to listen as much as possible and hear his perspective."

Directed by Farrelly from a screenplay by Peter Gamble, I Play Rocky also stars Matt Dillon, AnnaSophia Robb, P.J. Byrne, Toby Kebbell and Tracy Letts.

The original Rocky received nine nominations at the 1977 Academy Awards and won three – Best Picture, Best Director for John G. Avildsen and Best Film Editing.

Stallone was nominated for both Best Actor and Original Screenplay.

The movie went on to create one of cinema's most enduring franchises, with Stallone returning repeatedly as Rocky over the following decades.

Half a century later, however, the unusual experience of watching another actor recreate the struggle that made him famous has forced Stallone to confront his own legacy while he is still adding to it.

A Hollywood source told us: "Sylvester has spent his entire career confronting age, mortality and legacy through his work, but there is something uniquely unsettling about seeing Hollywood turn your own life into history while you're still here to watch it happen, and the experience has left him fearing death, and at the very least confronting his mortality.

"That's really where the 'I'm not dead yet' reaction comes from. There is humor in the way Sylvester says it, obviously, but underneath the joke is this strange realization that people are already looking back at his life and putting a full stop on an extraordinary story that, as far as he's concerned, isn't finished.

"He's 80, he's still acting, writing and working, so suddenly seeing a younger actor recreating the struggle that made him famous inevitably brings up thoughts about time passing and mortality. It's almost like being invited to watch your own legacy being packaged for future generations.

"That doesn't mean Sylvester dislikes the movie. Quite the opposite – he was genuinely astonished by Anthony's resemblance and has been supportive of him. But you can admire what they've created while still finding the experience slightly eerie.

"Rocky has always been intensely personal to Sylvester because the character's journey was so closely connected to his own. He fought incredibly hard to make that movie on his terms, and it completely transformed his life. Now somebody else is playing him fighting those same battles.

"There's also a difference between receiving lifetime-achievement honors and watching an actor become the young version of you in a biopic. One celebrates what you've achieved; the other inevitably makes you consider where you are in the chronology of your own life.

"Sylvester certainly isn't just morbidly sitting around obsessing about death – that's not his style.

"He's enormously active and still looking forward creatively. But the film has confronted him with his mortality in a way he probably wasn't expecting – and his joke about them 'jumping the gun' captures that perfectly."