Sylvester Stallone Says Trump Made Him Hollywood Ambassador Without Asking, Says He Only Found Out by Watching TV

Sylvester Stallone says US President Donald Trump named him a 'special ambassador' to Hollywood without first asking him, leaving the Rocky star to discover his new role while watching television.

Stallone, 80, told The Sunday Times that Trump caught him completely off guard with his January 2025 announcement naming him alongside Mel Gibson and Jon Voight as special envoys tasked with helping revive the US film industry.

'Well, it just happened,' Stallone recalled. 'I was watching TV one night and they go, 'So Stallone and Mel Gibson and Jon Voight will be ...' And I went, 'What?'' He added: 'If they had asked me in the beginning, I would have said, this is not possible.'

Stallone Said Trump's Hollywood Plan Was 'Impossible'

Trump announced the three actors as his Hollywood 'special ambassadors' on Truth Social on 16 January 2025, four days before he returned to the White House.

He said they would act as his 'eyes and ears' and help bring film and television business that had moved overseas back to the United States, promising a new 'Golden Age of Hollywood'. The duties attached to the unusual positions were never clearly defined.

Stallone said he was hesitant from the beginning because he did not believe three actors could simply tell major studios how to run their businesses.

'Hollywood, I guess it's like feudal states. They have their little kingdoms,' he said. 'You don't go in and tell six studios how to do things.'

He also described himself, Gibson and Voight as people accustomed to doing their 'own thing'. Stallone said he eventually told Trump the idea would not work.

'I said thank you and ciao, because it's impossible,' he recalled. 'Hollywood works, and it will evolve. It's corporate and corporate people won't want to hear me tell them about finance.'

Mel Gibson Was Surprised, Too

Stallone was apparently not the only actor who learned about the appointment after Trump had already announced it publicly.

Gibson said he saw Trump's social-media announcement at the same time as everyone else. 'I got the tweet at the same time as all of you and was just as surprised,' Gibson said, adding that he was willing to help. He jokingly asked whether the position came with 'an ambassador's residence'.

Voight has taken a more active role in the initiative, lobbying for federal incentives designed to encourage film and television productions to remain in the US.

Stallone Still Praises Trump

Despite rejecting the practical role Trump envisioned for him, Stallone has continued to speak warmly about the president.

Before Trump returned to office, Stallone introduced him at a November 2024 event at Mar-a-Lago, compared his political rise to the story of Rocky, and described him as a historically significant figure.

The interview also revisited Stallone's earlier praise for Trump. At the November 2024 Mar-a-Lago event, he described the president-elect as a 'really mythical character' and said he was 'in awe' of his political comeback.

His account, however, reveals an unusual detail behind Trump's Hollywood initiative: at least two of the three men chosen to help reshape the film industry apparently learned about their appointments only after the president-elect had already told the public.