DATE: Thursday, August 14, 1997             TAG: 9708140033

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  190 lines

SLY GETS SERIOUS STALLONE PUT ON 40 POUNDS OF FLAB AND GAVE UP HIS TOUGH-GUY IMAGE TO STAR IN ``COP LAND.''

THE SCORE is Rocky: 5; Rambo: 3; Stallone: 1.

The ``one'' is the new character-driven drama ``Cop Land'' in which Stallone, abandoning his flex-and-sock-'em persona, plays a paunchy, vulnerable sheriff in a New Jersey town run by corrupt cops.

Critics are calling his performance subtle and many-layered, even on a screen he shares with such ``serious'' actors as Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel. There's already talk of an Oscar nomination.

It's the ``new'' Sylvester Stallone who sits in front of us - an actor talking about a role, not a pop icon who leads with the chest. The star that Rocky Balboa and John Rambo made now wants to become an actor. And, just to prove it, he's 40 pounds overweight and enjoying it.

``I cannot tell you how many years I've thought of this but didn't have the nerve,'' Sly said. ``Sure, I was lucky to have played not one, but two, pop culture icons, but to an entire generation now, my name comes to mind in connection with no-brainer movies. I'm thought of only as either Rocky or Rambo and, while I'm proud of both those characters, I have tried other things.

``The thing is that this character in `Cop Land,' in his own way, is just as heroic as John Rambo. The true brave man is the one who goes up against odds that are almost impossible for him to meet.''

Stallone, whom everyone calls Sly, was sitting in the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, fresh from a flight from his home in Miami - a home he now feels is unsafe because of the recent murder of his friend designer Gianni Versace.

``It could have been prevented,'' Stallone said. ``It seems to me that the police were particularly ineffectual. It was a matter of priority. The murderer leaves a trail and has a stolen truck, with known license plates, parked there for weeks, and they can't get him? And then I hear that he was asking about my address. I'm planning to move my family out of Miami.''

Stallone will find it difficult to escape his notoriety no matter where he moves. He's paid $25 million per movie, and in the foreign market, he's still worth it, in spite of a series of recent films that have done progressively worse at the American box office - ``Judge Dredd,'' ``Assassins,'' ``The Specialist'' and ``Daylight.''

``I'm not proud of the last 10 years,'' he said. ``I'm not giving up action movies entirely. That would be a mistake. I like making them. It's just that they have to be intelligent. I want to be more careful about what I choose. I'd like to alternate a big film with a little film.''

When he read the script for ``Cop Land,'' he volunteered to audition for the role. The young scriptwriter, John Mangold, insisted that he wouldn't let the script loose unless he directed the movie.

Mangold, 33, has directed only one low-budget film and was a little surprised initially that superstar Stallone was interested.

``After talking awhile and seeing his energy, I realized that he could play Sheriff Freddy Heflin,'' Mangold said. ``In fact, after getting to know him, I think that it's more of a stretch for him to have played all those superheroes than it is to do this role. But I told him that if he wanted to be in a different movie, he would have to be different - not just the script. I told him that there would be no compromising. There'd be no discussions about `I can't do this scene.' There would be times he'd be out of focus and other actors would be in the foreground.''

And the young director added, incidentally, that he wanted Stallone to put on 40 pounds for the role.

``I wanted him to lose the muscle,'' Mangold said. ``I told him he'd be shot from all angles, so there'd be no way to avoid putting on the weight. I wasn't particularly interested in him just having a pot tummy. I wanted the weight to show in his face. I didn't want that gaunt, chiseled heroic look. After a month or so, I went down to Miami to visit him and we didn't agree on how much he had put on. He was showing me a quarter-inch pinch. I told him he'd have to lose more.''

Surprisingly, Stallone went along. He passed up his usual $25 million salary to take a mere $50,000 and a share of the profits, if any, on ``Cop Land.'' He turned down ``Air Force One'' and went all out for the little film.

``Putting on the weight was a joy,'' Stallone said. ``I ate everything that had been taboo. Pancakes for breakfast. Ordering trays of pasta from my favorite Italian restaurant. The hard thing was to stop exercising. The gym had become a way of life for me. It's a psychological crutch.

``As I put on weight, I began to get the character. I stopped looking at myself in the mirror. I lost some respect for myself. I'd tell people, `I'm doing this for a movie. This isn't really me.' Then I realized that Freddy wouldn't have had that out. I had to authentically get the feeling of insecurity. Physicality became less important. I had to learn that you don't enter a room and have everyone stare in admiration. I hope that I'll never be obsessed with my physique again. I want to be in shape and all that, but I had been obsessed.''

``I've always been a pussycat,'' Stallone said, in contradiction to his macho superhero image. ``Violent films were a challenge. I have had a broken nose, collar bone, ankle, vertebrae and cheekbone, and now I'm age 51. I can still do those films, but the 20th anniversary of `Rocky' gave me a feeling of nostalgia, but few people remember that movie was about nobility and achievement, not violence. I wanted to get back to that feeling.''

He admits that he had trepidation about sharing the screen with De Niro and Keitel. ``I went to Jim and told him to just let me know what he wanted and I'd do it. But I didn't know how to play silence. There were times when I thought, `I'm just dying here. I'm not ever working. Why should they feed me? I'm doing nothing. Won't the audience think I forgot my lines?' I felt so minimalist. Everyone around me was having great scenes, and I seemed to be doing nothing.''

It is he, though, who is getting the good reviews - for the first time in almost 20 years. His tender scene with Annabella Sciorra, as a woman he has always loved but been too shy to approach, is one of the more heart-wrenching of the movie year.

To play the hearing-impaired sheriff, who was injured years ago when he dove into deep water to save Sciorra from drowning, Stallone worked with the New York Institute of the Deaf.

``They put liquid silicone in one ear so that I couldn't hear,'' he said. ``I learned to look at people's lips when they talk. The real challenge was to play this reactive, recessive man without making him either precious or sentimental.

``I know something about playing people the world considers losers. I cleaned out the animal cages at the Bronx zoo as one of my first jobs. I worked on the docks. I see people the world thinks are losers but they're not. I've come a long way from my roots, but I still remember. Rocky was that kind of guy.''

Stallone was born in the Hell's Kitchen area of New York and grew up in what he calls a ``bad section'' of Philadelphia. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mother, Jackie, ran a gym called Jackie Barbarella. He remembers reading Superboy comic books and wearing his own makeshift Superboy outfit under his clothes. Once he tried to fly, resulting in only minor injury.

Steve Reeves as ``Hercules'' was his inspiration. The skinny kid who was known as ``Binkie'' went to the salvage yard and began lifting car parts after he saw ``Hercules.''

He changed schools 14 times in 11 years and was finally sent to a strict boys school in Maryland. A sports scholarship to American College in Geneva, Switzerland, followed.

He went to the University of Miami in 1967 to major in acting. He played the Hunchback of Notre Dame in one play but quit school to go to New York, hoping to become an immediate star. Instead, he got a job as an usher at a movie theater. There he met his future wife, Sasha, who was an usherette.

He remembers well his first movie role. ``I tried out to be a mugger in Woody Allen's movie `Bananas.' This guy named Tony and I went before Woody. He said we weren't intimidating enough. We went back and rubbed vaseline on our faces and added a little dirt. When we came back and tapped him on the shoulder, he said, `OK. Hire them already.' ''

His part in ``The Lords of Flatbush'' (1974) was a breakthrough. He even got a writing credit for ``additional dialogue.'' Henry Winkler, who was his co-star, used Stallone as the model for Fonzie later on the ``Happy Days'' TV series. With the money he made, Stallone and girlfriend Sasha packed their car and went to Hollywood.

Small roles in TV series like ``Kojak'' and ``Police Story'' came, but Sly was near desperation when he wrote a script for a boxing movie he called ``Rocky'' - written in longhand over three days. The model for Rocky Balboa was Chuck Wepner, a second-rate fighter who went the distance with champ Muhammad Ali.

The studios were interested, but as a vehicle for Ryan O'Neal. Stallone had only $100 left in his account and Sasha was pregnant, but he refused an offer of $265,000 for the script. He said that if he didn't play the role, it wouldn't be made. The studio eventually relented. The result was a phenomenon.

``Rocky,'' the story of a Cinderella in sweat pants, received 10 Oscar nominations and won the best-picture accolade over such stiff competition as ``Taxi Driver'' and ``Network.'' Overnight, Stallone was a sensation.

Since then, though, he's had trouble whenever he has tried to break away from the mold. ``F.I.S.T.,'' his own script about corruption in the labor movement was a box office bomb. ``Paradise Alley,'' about life in his native Hell's Kitchen, was also not a success. When he tried comedy in ``Rhinestone'' with Dolly Parton, the critics moaned. Even more disastrous were comedic tries with ``Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot'' and ``Oscar.''

Meanwhile, to the tune of millions in profit, he literally invented a new genre - the sequel. Contrary to any forecast, the Rocky films, which were actually more remakes than sequels, grew increasingly popular. ``Rocky IV,'' the most successful of them all, took in $278 million. Meanwhile, a second franchise was established with ``First Blood'' and the two ``Rambo'' sequels, about a muscled hero who fights the Commies.

His personal life was more stormy. His 11-year marriage to Sasha came to an end. She received a settlement of $36 million. He married amazon-actress Brigitte Nielsen, whom he put in ``Rocky IV,'' but it ended in divorce.

His son, Sergio, was born autistic.

His face brightens, though, when you mention Sophia Rose, his infant daughter who was born with a life-threatening heart condition last year. After an operation, and a long wait, she overcame the condition and is now perfectly normal. He and his new wife, model Jennifer Flavin, have a new family. This time, he vows that he isn't going to make as many movies.

He realizes that no matter what he does, he'll always be known as Rocky and Rambo, but it's time to move on. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MIRAMAX

Photo

MIRAMAX

Sylvester Stallone's tender scene with Annabella Sciorra, as a woman

he has always loved but been too shy to approach, is a highlight of

``Cop Land.'' KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY MOVIES

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