- All right, guys.
So aside from Arnold's appearances in the Expendables,
I think I'm right in saying that Escape Plan
is the first time that you two have shared
top billing in a movie.
I'm interested to know how you both came to be
involved with this project,
and why it was the right film for you
to finally collaborate on?
- Of course, I just read the script and it's hard
to find something in the genre that's different,
and this was different.
It's, even though it's contemporary,
it's futuristic at the same time.
It sounds like a contradiction in terms,
but it's true.
And then, the most important thing is,
who are the players?
Who's going to be your competition,
or your antagonist,
and eventually your buddy in this?
And, you know, Arnold of course.
So, when he complied then we had,
it was green-lit immediately.
There was no one else considered.
He was the guy.
- For me it was A, Sly was in the movie
and we were trying for decades to do movie together, right?
So, I mean finally we found a script.
We did Expendables together,
but this was like starring throughout the whole movie.
So that was number one, working with Sly.
Number two, with Mikael Hafstrom.
I mean the director is very talented director,
and he's very organized.
He's done great movies and when I met with him
I could see he really had his act together.
In directing what his vision was of the movie.
And number three, Mark Canton,
who is the producer of the movie,
and who we had worked with when he was
the head of Warner Brothers.
We have done many movies for him,
but now he has his own independent production company,
so we trusted him and he always has great projects.
We wanted to work with him.
So that was the three reasons, really.
And the story was terrific.
- Yeah, I read that one of the reasons the pair of you
enjoy working together is because you push each other,
you can push the best out of each other.
Could you expand on this a little bit,
and explain why it makes for such a fruitful relationship?
- Because we have very healthy egos,
we're very competitive,
everything we've accomplished in our life
has been through struggle and overcoming the odds,
and just not willing to settle for second-best.
And rarely do you get those
two kinds of personalities together,
so when you see, for example,
when Muhammad Ali fights anybody, eh, it's okay.
When he fights Joe Frazier,
everybody has to see that because they know
it's two indomitable forces.
And out of that can only become a great, great scenario.
A great scene, period.
- Yeah, I think the competitiveness really pays off.
I remember that in the eighties when we really,
when the action genre started getting going,
and we were very competitive.
As a matter of fact, one time in the mid-eighties
we ran into each other and I said to Sly,
I says, "I think that on Commando I killed more people
than you did on Rambo."
And he says, "Oh, absolutely not. I killed 97 people."
I said, "Well, I killed, yeah you're right.
93 I only killed."
So, okay, you won this one.
Next movie, I said, "I'm going to kill more people
I can guarantee."
He said, "The next movie comes around", he said,
"I will be killing over a hundred."
So I said, "Don't worry, you're never going to catch up."
So this is how it went, you know,
we'd who has more muscles, who has bigger guns,
who can shoot more people, who can kill more,
who can kill people in one of the most unique way.
- Who gets paid by the bullet. - Exactly!
And who gets more at the box office,
and all of this.
It was just competitive all the way around.
- It seems like you have fun with it now though,
that history because there's a lot of humor in this film
as well, isn't there?
Arnold, I particularly think of the moment when you're
on the helicopter.
There's a great close-up and a huge machine gun,
those people shot on top of the boat.
How important is this comic relief in a film like this,
and how much of it came from you guys just having
a blast on the set?
- Well, I have to defer to Arnold,
because he really developed action comedy.
And humor in very dramatic situations.
I'm not, my character Rambo's not exactly a ball of laughs,
but his characters can pull it off,
and I think it has to do with his personality.
- Yeah, I mean I think that this was one of those moments
when in a script that I talked to the director,
and I said, "We can really make something out of that."
And first of all, you know, very intense moment where
you know, I wipe out all those guards
that are up there on the top of the prison.
But number two, it's good to have the smirk then.
The certain kind of sense of humor about the whole thing.
And do the buddy thing,
because he then is all of the sudden below me,
and is coming up from the water.
And now I'm, you know we're handing guns to each other
and killing more people and all this.
So it became a really great action scene
but we did it together.
- But he did invent, he's modest.
He did invent the one-liner.
That's one of his major contributions,
they didn't have those before, really.
- Okay, and finally guys,
we're here in Bulgaria because you guys are filming
Expendables 3 at the moment.
I was wondering what more you can tell me about that,
and how exciting is it to work with the new Expendables
like Harrison Ford?
- I think it's fantastic.
I think this film,
and there's a young director named Patrick Hughes,
and I said to him, "Forget the other two Expendables.
You must approach this not as a continuation,
but as an original.
Bring all your sensibilities.
Because if you feel as though you're trying to catch up
to somebody or imitate something it's just going
to dull you."
So he made this thing.
The music, the image, the casting.
Arnold has been incredibly impressed,
I'm impressed because so many times
we work with directors that will go,
"Again, louder. Again, faster."
Instead of a man who literally is so specific.
The young Expendables this is a big gamble.
Because only one of them really has acted a lot.
The rest are world-class athletes, world champions.
But they have something that you cannot manufacture,
whether you go to acting school,
or you just walk around with a bunch of bluff and bravado.
They have fire in their gut.
To be a world champion you have to have something
really, really powerful.
Especially the physical.
You have to endure pain and still want to triumph.
And they've got that.
And I thought, if they can get that across on film,
just that glint in the eye,
and they have.
- I think that this one since I've been part of all three,
not as much time as Sly has,
- Gee, thanks.
- but I mean I was part of it.
But this one I think has really good sense of humor,
- (Stallone) Yeah.
- but it also has a lot of new talent.
And I, for instance, worked with one guy
yesterday I did a scene with Jet Li.
I mean I was like, I was telling Sly
I said, "You know I still can't figure it out,
I've seen him do this scene of disarming this guy
and pulling his guns out shooting this guy
and shooting five guys over his shoulder."
I said, "He's done it so fast
that I could never see the moves."
I said, "I'm trying to watch exactly when he pulls the gun
but how he does it... "
I mean this must be the fastest guy around.
So to have that kind of talent, martial arts,
and to use those martial arts moves then with weapons.
With knives and with guns and machine guns
and all that good stuff,
and to see the way he goes and moves around the corner
the way takes guys out.
Jumps down the steps and those,
I mean it's so quick.
So to have all of these different talents.
You know like Dolph Lundgren has his own style,
you know with his knife or with all the wildness
and his face and all of his...
So everyone you know, has this stuff.
So it's bringing all of them together
and to have that many action stars is really extraordinary.
- Gents, it's been an absolute pleasure to speak with you.
- Hey.
- Absolutely.