by Paul Fischer

25 years ago Sylvester Stallone became a superstar and something of a hero with Rocky. A quarter of a century on, a fit and youthful Stallone is back in the driver's seat - literally and figuratively - in the Renny Harlin-directed race car movie, Driven. Based on the CART open-wheel racing circuit, Stallone plays a semi-retired driver who agrees to coach a young racing prodigy in turn pitted against a champion driver. Stallone is both star and producer of the film, which took him four years to get off the ground. It was appropriate, then, that Paul Fischer met with Stallone at the Toyota race trials in Long Beach, California, with the sounds of engines humming loudly in the background.

CrankyCritic: 25 years after Rocky, what parallels would you draw between your character in Driven and Rocky Balboa?
Sylvester Stallone: Only in that he's unfulfilled in a sense, as he says in the beginning, he's will over skill, he has a lot of incentive and a lot of heart and he feels for people.

CrankyCritic: Did you recognize any of Rocky when you were writing this script or are you simply attracted to characters like these guys?
Sylvester Stallone: Very much so. Initially the character was much darker and much more controversial in the sense I took a compilation of characters that had blown their careers, had been accident-prone, had become drunkards, very, very drivers that had blown their careers at the height, and he's brought back originally as an example of how drivers should never be. That's why Burt Reynolds brings him back because Kit Pardue's character is going off the deep end, the champ can't deal with his responsibilities, fear is setting in, and he's basically setting up his own failure syndrome. I found that people literally sabotage themselves, and the young driver was sabotaging himself; he's finding ways to fail so he doesn't have to deal with the pressure. Then I'm brought back there as a man who did the same thing, so I am supposed to be his mentor, and guide him through this minefield from all the mistakes I've made. That character was extremely in the forefront, almost a one-man show with the rest of these characters sort of in the background and I didn't think that was the way to go, so that was reduced to the point where it became more of an ensemble.

CrankyCritic: Both Rocky and Driven were written at specific times in your life. Do both films reflect where you are at those points in time?
Sylvester Stallone: Yeah, I think so. I think there's a more contemplative aspect to it all and you become more philosophical and towering, and not so self-serving. I think if you start to will and project things, stuff could happen. I mean I think you have to be part of your own architect and you have to have the responsibility and discipline to be happy, but at the same time to be supportive of other people, because I think that's all part of one's success to have people also give you their love and endorsement. So that's what I tried to do in this film. He is more of a big brother to these guys and he says to the young driver: As soon as you can take care of yourself off the track, you'll be able to take care of yourself on the track. And that's my philosophy of life, the same with acting. Until you get your private life in order, you can't keep your professional life in order, it just won't work.

CrankyCritic: Let's talk about the process of getting this film made. You wrote it over four years ago and started shopping it around ---
Sylvester Stallone: That's almost a movie in itself. It's four years of almost back-to-basics; it's almost like starting out as an unknown, because you're dealing with a project that a lot of people are wary of, racing. There have been racing movies in the past, but they haven't performed as well as say, football movies, so there's a little hesitancy. So we had to start from scratch. In this day and age you can imagine how expensive it is for a racecar film to be, so to put the whole thing together and do it within a very frugal budget, is pretty impossible.