Sylvester Stallone says he found out he was named a special ambassador to Hollywood the same way millions of Americans did, by watching television. The legendary actor told The Sunday Times that the announcement caught him completely off guard and his first reaction was disbelief.
“I was watching TV one night, and they go, ‘So Stallone and Mel Gibson and Jon Voight will be …’ and I went, ‘What?'” Stallone recalled. “I said, ‘Excuse me? Really?’ Because if they had asked me in the beginning, I would have said, ‘This is not possible.'”
Trump’s Announcement
President Donald Trump made the appointment official on Jan. 16, 2025, through a Truth Social post that named all three actors at once. It is my honor to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California,” Trump wrote. He added that the three men would “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.”
Stallone said he told the president directly that he had serious doubts about the role’s feasibility, citing the power structure of the film industry. “Hollywood, I guess, it’s like feudal states,” he said. “They have their little kingdoms. You don’t go in and tell six studios how to do things.” He also said he felt the corporate culture of the industry would be resistant. “Hollywood works, and it will evolve. It’s corporate, and corporate people won’t want to hear me tell them about finance,” he said. “I said thank you and ciao, because it’s impossible.” You can read more in Stallone’s Hollywood ambassador role.
Stallone Accepts the Post Despite Doubts
Despite his reservations, Stallone ultimately accepted the appointment. In a statement to Variety at the time, he said: “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.”
The appointment came weeks after Stallone had introduced Trump at an event following the 2024 presidential election, where he delivered an effusive tribute comparing the president-elect to a founding father. When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was gonna change the world,” Stallone said at the time. “Guess what? We got the 2nd George Washington.”
What the Role Means Going Forward
The scope and day-to-day responsibilities of the special ambassador role have not been formally defined, and Stallone’s own comments suggest the three actors are still working out how to approach an industry that operates on its own terms. Gibson and Voight face the same challenge he described, bringing influence to bear on major studios without a formal mandate to direct them.
How Stallone, Gibson, and Voight translate the honorary titles into concrete action for Hollywood’s domestic film industry remains an open question, and no formal policy announcements tied to the ambassadorship have been made public since the January 2025 appointment.
