Sylvester Stallone Taking On His First Lead Television Role at Age 75

Sylvester Stallone may have recently said goodbye to a number of his most well-known franchise roles, but that doesn’t mean the action hero is gone for good. The actor has seldom stopped working since launching his acting career decades ago, whether as an actor, producer, director, or writer, but he has never portrayed a starring character in a television show.

Stallone is as famous and in demand as he has ever been, having recently completed filming on The Expendables 4 and also reprising his role for Guardians of the Galaxy 3 filming. Now the Rocky hero is slated to star in the new Paramount+ series Kansas City, created by the same people who brought us Boardwalk Empire and the current blockbuster Yellowstone.  This will be the 75-year-first old’s starring role in a television series.

 Variety reports that Stallone will play Sal in Kansas City, a New York mob boss with legendary mafia connections who looks to bring his family back to power in Kansas City, Missouri. According to the report, Sal’s task of reestablishing his Italian mob family sees him encounter “surprising and unsuspecting characters who follow him along his unconventional path to power.” While Stallone is on top of his game as a gun-totting action hero surrounded by explosions and mercenaries, as well as being a first major role in television, the role seems to be more of a test of his acting chops rather than just flexing his muscles and firepower.

With so many streaming platforms now releasing new content and most of them seeming to have an endless budget to work with, it appears that you can never be too old to try something new. After recently voicing King Shark in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, playing a superhero in the soon-to-be released Samaritan, and releasing his new cut of Rocky IV, why shouldn’t he take a shot at practically the only thing he hadn’t done so far?