More than a decade after working on the set of The Expendables, Sylvester Stallone admitted his time on the production left a long-lasting negative effect on him.

In the Netflix documentary, Sly, Stallone spoke about how he pushed himself a bit too much for The Expendables. “Truthfully, I never fully recovered from Expendables 1,” he confessed. “It did such a number on my body I’ve never been the same. Never.”

Sylvester Stallone previously spoke to TNT magazine about making The Expendables as being a “prehistoric” figure in action-packed films. “We were like head waiters at the Last Supper. We had a dinosaur as a house pet. We’re old. Well, I’m old.”

Despite getting older and less built for long-running action films, it didn’t seem like Stallone wanted to slow down at all. “I’ve done my ‘mind’ movies and I don’t think people are really that interested in seeing me do that anymore. I think I’m past my prime doing dramatic films. It becomes like almost a pathetic cry to be recognized as a serious dramatic actor.”

When asked about the body count his films have, Sylvester Stallone said he finds the violence to be very justifiable. “One thing in my films, I kill people that need to be killed. The ones that deserve it, get it and they get it good but the ones that go after women really get it.”

Stallone did three of The Expendables films before eventually quitting the franchise. This was due to creative differences.

Why Did Sylvester Stallone Quit and Rejoin ‘The Expendables’ Franchise

Although he had quit The Expendables after the third film, Sylvester Stallone decided to rejoin the franchise for its fourth film. 

Screenrant reported that Stallone originally left The Expendables 4 because the production wasn’t going his way. Eventually, he did rejoin, but was barely in the film. He only made an appearance in the film but didn’t do any of the screenplay writing like he did in the first three films. 

Producer of The Expendables 4, Les Weldon went on to clarify to JoBlo the reason behind Stallone’s small role in the film. “It just happened to be the best story we had all put together that we had all thought about,” he explained. “And even though there is that element in there, it was a function of the script and the story. We didn’t want to make a mistake of, well, bring in this actor or bring in that actor and try to jam them in here. This story came out organically, and Sly was all up for it, and it gives a good twist to the story and was just something that felt very organic and natural for this Expendables.”

Expendables 4 debuted in September 2023.