Rocky Balboa Finds Redemption (12/10/2006)

"The more I go to church," he said, "and the more I turn myself over to the process of believing in Jesus and listening to His Word and having Him guide my hand, I feel as though the pressure is off me now." Stallone spoke of being reborn in a teleconference with pastors and religious leaders concerning the faith elements of the unlikely sixth movie that's due out Dec. 22. "You need to have the expertise and the guidance of someone else. You cannot train yourself," he said. "I feel the same way about Christianity and about what the church is: The church is the gym of the soul."Sylvester Stallone

Excerpts from The Gym of the Soul

Sylvester Stallone has purposefully included faith and values in the Rocky films, and those elements are even more prominent in Rocky Balboa ("The Heart of a Champion," "Fighting the Good Fight," "Recovery After a Fall," etc.), the final chapter in the Rocky story due in theaters December 22 (yes, Stallone himself gets back in the ring!).

In interviews with various faith-based publications, Sly recently shared some of his thoughts about the Rocky character and faith: "In Rocky, if he's just a fighter, then it's just a boxing story, and I told the producers in the beginning, 'It's not a boxing story; it's a spiritual journey. It really is about a man that has been chosen to accomplish a role, to be an example for other people'." - Sylvester Stallone

 

Interview with New Man Magazine "If you don't have a great relationship with God, you can go off the deep end. The Christian foundation of life is really the perfect ideal which one should base every decision they make on, because it comes from a sense of kindness, a sense of giving, a sense of fairness, and it avoids everything which I'm exposed to every day in my particular industry which is greed, and avarice and jealousy and bitterness . . ."

 

Interview with Catholic Digest We recently screened Rocky Balboa for some key leaders, who had a chance to meet with Sly after the screening. Here's what they had to say: "Life is hard, and faith can help us to face some of those challenges and issues in our past and you see Rocky do that throughout the movies but particularly it comes to kind of a peak in this movie and it was exciting to see."

ROCKY BALBOA stars Sylvester Stallone, Burt Young, Milo Ventimiglia, Tony Burton, James Francis Kelly III, Antonio Tarver and Geraldine Hughes.