Patrick Hoffmann/WENN
Sylvester Stallone has urged ageing stars to give up retirement dreams – because they owe it to their fans to just keep going.
The veteran action man has revived his career with The Expendables franchise and admits he has no time for old-timers like Jack Nicholson, who opt to quit acting and retire.
He tells WENN, “Age is a state of old mind. It gets to the point when you get old enough you forget how old you are and that’s the best thing. You walk around kind of like in a fog. So you really don’t know how old you are and it’s beautiful. And then you find yourself watching Teletubbies drunk one night! I’m not ready to sit at home and play with Pomeranians (dogs) 12 hours a day. So you keep going.”
“Remember, in old vaudeville there was a cane that snatched you off the stage? Well, I’m waiting for that until they just hook me off and that’s it. Actors don’t want to retire. They’re usually forced to retire and that’s sad because you get better as you get older. You may not remember as much dialogue, but you do remember you’re better at it.”
“We’re just adult children and we’re there to perform and when that’s taken away… I’ve always said that the artist dies twice. And the first death is the hardest, which is the career death and the creative death; the physical death is an inevitability. “I think everyone should just keep going and I think that’s happening. I think the genre is opening up and television is providing more alternate careers for second acts in adult actors’ careers.”
