Despite not knowing who Stallone was, Carl Weathers was nervous for his “Rocky” audition, which ended in silence. “I’ve got all this energy going,” he told Rich Eisen, “and at the end of it, the reading, it’s like — it’s quiet, it’s like crickets man.”
Feeling that he was being judged and had perhaps botched his chance at the Apollo Creed role, Weathers was left doubting himself and his mumbly scene partner:
“The producers and the directors are kind of leaning over to each other and then I see John Avildsen, our director, giggle a little bit. And I’m really nervous now, because I think I blew the interview, right? I blew the audition. So I chirp out, ‘You know, if you get me a real actor I could do a lot better!’ I have no idea why they laughed, too! And Stallone looks up at me like, ‘This idiot, who’s he? Who does he think he is?’ And I tell people, I think I got the job because Sly wanted to beat the hell out of me.”
Weathers would go on to play Apollo Creed in four “Rocky” films, and with Michael B. Jordan now playing his son, Adonis Creed, in a spin-off trilogy, it’s safe to say that the “Arrested Development” version of Weathers is right – “there’s still plenty meat on that bone.”
Looking back on his first “Rocky” audition, before he ever donned the flashy Apollo Creed’s star-spangled boxing trunks, Weathers concluded, “As far as I know, as far as I’ve heard, one thing Sly always said was, ‘He was so arrogant, I knew he could do the role.’ But I wasn’t being arrogant. I was being nervous, man. I wanted the role!”
