Sylvester Stallone Thinks Ryan Gosling Should Take Over One of His Most Iconic Roles

Speaking with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, Hollywood icon Sylvester Stallone revealed that he recently had a conversation with Barbie star Ryan Gosling. Gosling, who had used Stallone as part of his inspiration for the role of Ken, reportedly told Stallone that he had long been a fan of the Rambo movies, in which Stallone appeared and also served as co-writer and often director. The first film, titled First Blood, centered on John Rambo, a veteran with severe post-traumatic stress disorder who finds himself targeted and harassed by law enforcement in a small town. The result? A bloody, destructive showdown that ends with the police department destroyed and Rambo convinced to surrender himself to state troopers only after the intervention of his former commanding officer.

While the first movie, based on a book by onetime Captain America writer David Morrell, was a thoughtful character study, as the series went on, it became increasingly cartoonish and implausible, transforming Rambo from a complicated and dangerous man into John McClane, but with way more explosives. The Rambo series became a beloved action staple, even leading to toys and an animated series.

"I met [Ryan Gosling] at a dinner," Stallone told Fallon. "Obviously we are opposites. He's good looking. I'm not. Seriously! Could you imagine me as Ken? It doesn't work at all....[Ryan] goes, 'I was fascinated by Rambo, and I used to go to school dressed as Rambo, and people would chase me, away and I still didn't stop. I'd vacation as Rambo.' He just kept saying that he had a lot of affiliation with Rambo. And I thought, you know, this is interesting. If I ever pass the baton, I'll pass it on to him because he loves the character."

You can see the full interview below.

Stallone's most recent appearance as Rambo was in the 2019 thriller Rambo: Last Blood, in which an aging, retired John Rambo finds himself squaring off with Mexican drug cartels. Later that year, he said that he was interested in working on a prequel that would center on a pre-Vietnam John Rambo -- a young, vibrant athlete and all-American kid whose journey to Vietnam and back would show how he ended up the angry, traumatized man audiences know. 

As recently as 2022, the idea of transforming that prequel idea into a TV series, where audiences could invest even more time in getting to know the young Rambo, was being bandied about by studios.