Sylvester Stallone calls Trump’s ‘special ambassador’ role ‘impossible’

Sylvester Stallone is sharing details about U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to appoint him as a Hollywood “special ambassador.”

In January 2025, Trump announced his plans to make Hollywood “stronger than ever before” and named stars Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight “special ambassadors.”

The Rocky actor said that he didn’t exactly sign up for the role of “special ambassador.”

“Well, it just happened,” the 80-year-old actor said in a recent interview with The Sunday Times . “I was watching TV one night and they go, ‘So Stallone and Mel Gibson and Jon Voight will be…’ And I went, ‘What?’ I said, ‘Excuse me? Really?’ Because if they had asked me in the beginning, I would have said, this is not possible.”

Stallone said that he told Trump “it won’t work” after the appointment.

“I guess it’s like feudal states. They have their little kingdoms. You don’t go in and tell six studios how to do things,” the Tulsa King actor said of Hollywood.

“I said thank you and ciao, because it’s impossible. Hollywood works, and it will evolve,” Stallone continued. “It’s corporate, and corporate people won’t want to hear me tell them about finance.”

Trump named the three actors “special ambassadors” to Hollywood in Truth Social post last year, writing, “It is my honour to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California.”

“They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”

Trump said that the three ambassadors would “be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest.”

“It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood,” he added.

Gibson spoke about the appointment in a statement to Variety following Trump’s announcement, saying, “I got the tweet at the same time as all of you and was just as surprised.”

“Nevertheless, I heed the call. My duty as a citizen is to give any help and insight I can,” he added. “Any chance the position comes with an Ambassador’s residence?”

Earlier this month, Voight told The Hollywood Reporter that he’s used his “special ambassador” role to lobby for a U.S. federal film and television tax credit at the White House.