{"id":2104067,"date":"2025-10-20T18:26:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T18:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2104067"},"modified":"2025-10-20T18:26:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T18:26:16","slug":"sylvester-stallone-cheers-on-the-lookalike-actor-playing-him-in-new-biopic-keep-punching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/sylvester-stallone-cheers-on-the-lookalike-actor-playing-him-in-new-biopic-keep-punching\/","title":{"rendered":"Sylvester Stallone cheers on the lookalike actor playing him in new biopic: &#8216;Keep punching!&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2025%2F10%2F113864884.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>He\u2019s got the eye of the Sylvester.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2023\/03\/04\/how-sylvester-stallone-lost-his-rocky-legacy\/\">\u201cRocky\u201d star Sylvester<\/a> Stallone <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DQA1SsXDX99\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sent his best wishes<\/a> on Sunday to the team of his new biopic, \u201cI Play Rocky,\u201d including the actor who will soon embody his younger self onscreen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe movie \u2018I play Rocky\u2019 [sic] started filming Friday,\u201d Stallone, 79, wrote in an Instagram post alongside a photo of Anthony Ippolito running on a beach. \u201cGood luck to them \u2013 keep punching!!!\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Sylvester Stallone told the team of \u201cI Play Rocky,\u201d including actor Anthony Ippolito (above), to \u201ckeep on punching!\u201d <span class=\"credit\">amazonmgmstudios\/Instagram<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Ippolito, 25, will play an early-career Stallone. <span class=\"credit\">GC Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The 25-year-old Islip native, who\u2019s a dead ringer for Sly, isn\u2019t <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/09\/18\/entertainment\/sylvester-stallones-rocky-step-scene-was-improvised\/\">picking up the gloves of Rocky Balboa, <\/a>though.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2023\/03\/02\/my-brush-with-sylvester-stallone-as-a-rocky-ii-extra\/\">He\u2019s playing an early-career Stallone<\/a> \u2014 from the 1960s to \u201876 \u2014 as the showbiz unknown wrote and eventually starred in \u201cRocky\u201d all the way to a Best Picture Oscar win over the likes of \u201cNetwork,\u201d \u201cAll The President\u2019s Men\u201d and \u201cTaxi Driver.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the ultimate Hollywood underdog story.<\/p>\n<p>The Amazon MGM film, which has no release date yet, will be directed by Peter Farrelly, whose \u201cGreen Book\u201d won Best Picture in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Casting news has slowly trickled out. Last week, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2025\/10\/pj-byrne-toby-kebbell-jay-duplass-cast-i-play-rocky-1236589417\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Deadline reported <\/a>that PJ Byrne will play producer Irwin Winkler, Toby Kebbell is producer Robert Chartoff, Tracy Letts is a composite of studio execs and Jay Duplass will be \u201cRocky\u201d director John Avildsen.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Stallone wrote and starred in \u201cRocky,\u201d which turned into a nine-film franchise. <span class=\"credit\">\u00a9United Artists\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>The \u201cRocky\u201d franchise continues to be a huge Hollywood moneymaker.  <span class=\"credit\">Evan Agostini\/Invision\/AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Previously it was revealed that AnnaSophia Robb will play Stallone\u2019s ex-wife Sasha Czack, Matt Dillon will be Frank Stallone Sr. and Stephan James will tackle the part of Apollo Creed actor Carl Weathers, <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2024\/02\/02\/entertainment\/carl-weathers-dead-rockys-apollo-creed-and-predator-star-was-76\/\">who died in 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI Play Rocky\u201d isn\u2019t Ippolito\u2019s first time becoming a screen legend. In the Paramount+ limited series \u201cThe Offer,\u201d the actor also played Oscar winner Al Pacino.<\/p>\n<p>The nine-movie \u201cRocky\u201d franchise continues to be a huge Hollywood moneymaker. The three \u201cCreed\u201d films starring Michael B. Jordan have grossed a combined $664 million worldwide.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He\u2019s got the eye of the Sylvester.\u00a0 \u201cRocky\u201d star Sylvester Stallone sent his best wishes on Sunday to the team of his new biopic, \u201cI Play Rocky,\u201d including the actor who will soon embody his younger self onscreen. \u201cThe movie \u2018I play Rocky\u2019 [sic] started filming Friday,\u201d Stallone, 79, wrote in an Instagram post alongside [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2104068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[25538,21741,21993,21912,23943],"class_list":["post-2104067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-actors","tag-entertainment","tag-films","tag-movies","tag-sylvester-stallone"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sylvester-Stallone-cheers-on-the-lookalike-actor-playing-him-in.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2104067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2104069,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104067\/revisions\/2104069"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2104068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2104067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2104067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2104067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}