Never. Too. Late.

Rocky's Final Round

You don't need to talk to Stallone for long... "It nags me that I took the easy way instead of the high road," he says. "But everyone makes mistakes. I look around at people my age, and I can see it in their eyes—a kind of bittersweet reflection: 'I didn't live the life that I wanted, and now I've got all this stuff I want to say, but nobody wants to hear it.' I was feeling that, and if you don't get it out, it can become a beast that tears you apart."

..."I have things I truly regret," he says. "I had, on occasion, sold out. But don't I get the chance to recover?" In person, Stallone is a powerful physical presence, his face ragged with age, and his torso still a mass of dense muscle. Yet there's a gentleness to him. Even when he's expressing strong opinions, which is often, there's no anger in his voice. "I don't understand aging gracefully," he says. "I'll always be at war with that. I'd rather age ungracefully, kicking and screaming. Don't hand me down my top hat and walking cane. You know, I went to speak at the AARP—did you know that starts at 50?—and I said, 'Yes, youth must be served. After us. And we're going back for seconds and thirds'."

...Stallone's wish is that this last chapter in the Rocky legend will be a call to action for his own. "I'm hoping it triggers people who think their time has come and gone to say, 'Maybe I'd like to climb that mountain or open up that business or go back to school'," he says. "I mean, why not?" During the final credits of "Rocky Balboa," Stallone turns the camera on the fans. As the "Rocky" music rises, dozens of ordinary men and women, young and old, in frame after frame, reach the top of Rocky's steps and, with wide smiles, raise their fists in the air.