Sylvester Stallone Recalls Being Crushed and Almost Drowning in 2 'Most Dangerous Stunts' of His Career
- - Sylvester Stallone Recalls Being Crushed and Almost Drowning in 2 'Most Dangerous Stunts' of His Career
Jack SmartNovember 13, 2025 at 10:52 PM
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Sylvester Stallone in 'Demolition Man' -
Sylvester Stallone recalled some of his most iconic screen roles and action stunts in a new interview
In 1993’s Demolition Man, the Oscar nominee endured “the two most dangerous stunts I've ever done,” he said
One stunt involved a real metal vise, while another could have easily resulted in his drowning
Sylvester Stallone did more than his share of death-defying stunts in his action-star heyday.
The actor-filmmaker, 79, broke down his most iconic screen characters from Rocky to Rambo in a recent video interview with GQ. It was 1993’s Demolition Man, he said, that brought about “the two most dangerous stunts I've ever done.”
In the sci-fi action flick costarring Wesley Snipes and Sandra Bullock and directed by Marco Brambilla, Stallone played the cryogenically frozen John Spartan, released in the distant future to wreak all kinds of havoc.
“It was what we call a practical set,” Stallone explained. A scene involving his character caught in a “giant claw” while fighting Snipes’ Simon Phoenix was liable to cause real injury.
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Sylvester Stallone at the New York City premiere of 'Tulsa King' season 3 on Sept. 16
“Those things really worked,” he said of the clamps. “The hydraulics would go sideways, and the strength of those metal claws would tear you up.”
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The other stunt the Rocky star couldn’t forget involved a “round tub, thick plexiglass — you couldn't break it with a sledgehammer,” he said. As the container John Spartan is trapped in was filled up with “warm oil,” he explained, there was danger of drowning if the amount reached past his nose.
“And you can't get out because the lid was bolted on,” continued Stallone. “I had a couple of fellas that were sitting there with sledgehammers and hatchets.” After the scene concluded, he recalled telling them, “‘Why don't you try to open it?' Of course, they hit it 20 times and couldn't crack it.”
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Sylvester Stallone in 1993
He concluded, “So that was crazy.”
Stallone is no stranger to cheating death for the sake of cinematic greatness. In 1985’s Rocky IV, he faced off against Dolph Lundgren, later claiming his costar had almost killed him with a punch.
“He hit me so hard he almost stopped my heart,” Stallone said in 2019. “Next thing I know, I’m on a low-altitude plane to the emergency room, and I’m in intensive care for four days. And there are all these nuns around.”
Stallone leads Paramount+ drama Tulsa King, now streaming its third season. A biopic centered on the actor-writer making 1976’s Rocky, called I Play Rocky, is also in the works.
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
