First Published: October 14, 2013 6:26 PM EDT Credit: Access Hollywood
Caption Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger promote ‘Escape Plan’
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger have teamed up for a new film — “Escape Plan” — but this isn’t the first time someone has tried to put the two action stars opposite each other on the big screen.
“The interesting thing really, is that for decades, they’ve tried to put us together in a movie and the scripts were horrible,” Arnold told Access Hollywood’s Michelle Beadle as he sat down alongside Sly for an interview at the film’s junket in New York City on Monday. “It was like dreadful. We could not have accepted any of that.
“One movie wanted us to be undercover agents in drag, and another movie wanted us to change from human beings to animals,” Arnold continued. “So he was the dog and I was the cat and we were fighting each other. It was some comedy. It was all this ludicrous stuff.
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“In this one, from the beginning, we’re together in this movie and we have this major fight scene,” Arnold added of “Escape Plan,” the project they said yes to.
“Escape Plan” is the first non-ensemble movie that pairs the two men up. Sly plays a man whose job is to figure out how to break out of prisons. He’s an efficiency expert on prison security, and after he gets framed and thrown behind bars, he encounters a prisoner played by Arnold.
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And during the film, the two men engage in a huge battle.
“This entire day we shot this fight scene, different angles, close ups, wide shots. He was down, I was down, he gets punched, I get punched. It was going back and forth,” Arnold explained. “It was just a wild, wild fight scene, really well-choreographed the whole thing, but also [there were] some things that went a little bit out of control, which always is good because the camera picks up all those things, so it was really terrific working with him on this film.”
Asked by Michelle who would win if the action stars fought in real life, the two men came up with a humorous series of answers.
“We’re going to do a movie called ‘Grumpy Old Hags,’ and we’re gonna battle it out,” Sly joked.
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“He would be on top of me punching me, I‘d say, ‘Get off me, let’s go get a schnitzel,’” Arnold added.
“We’re both pretty strong and he’s got a mean streak in him,” Sly continued.
“We’re very competitive, so because of that, I think it would be a very interesting fight,” Arnold said.
“Escape Plan” opens October 18 in theaters.
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