Rambo's shaping up to be a big draw for Major League Baseball players.
"HGH is nothing. Anyone who calls it a steroid is grossly misinformed," Sylvester Stallone, the action sequel's uncannily buff 61-year-old star, says in a recent interview with Time magazine.
He's referring to human growth hormone, a legal yet oft frowned-upon substance that stimulates bone and muscle growth and is banned in much of the sporting world.
"Testosterone to me is so important for a sense of well-being when you get older," said Stallone, who first played John Rambo in 1982 and put on 41 pounds of prescription-HGH-enhanced muscle to reincarnate the character for the franchise's fourth installment, which opened Friday.
"Everyone over 40 years old would be wise to investigate it, because it increases the quality of your life," he said. "Mark my words. In 10 years, it will be over the counter."
Stallone has been making the talk-show rounds to promote Rambo, which he also directed and cowrote, and in tight-fitting shirts and jeans he's looking as beefy as ever.
It's unsurprising that the Oscar winner has spoken out on behalf of HGH, considering he has apparently been a fan of it for some time.
In May, an Australian court fined the actor more than $10,000 for bringing 48 vials of synthetic hormone into the country without a permit. Stallone told customs officials at Sydney International Airport that he and his luggage were actually en route to Asia, where filming on Rambo was due to begin, and that a doctor had prescribed the substances to treat an unspecified condition.
"This stuff gives your body a boost and you feel and look good," he told customs agents, per their official report. "Doing Rambo is hard work, and I am going to be in Burma for a while. Where do you think I am going to get this stuff in Burma?"
Stallone also told reporters at the time that he's taken HGH "for years."
Fellow '80s action icon (and current governor of California) Arnold Schwarzenegger took note of Stallone's figure during the Las Vegas premiere this week.
"I don’t think Sly has ever been that muscular and has had that little body fat," the Gubernator told Extra. "He looks very athletic and very powerful, so he’s totally believable in the character he plays."
Meanwhile, reviews for the new Rambo—in which the former Green Beret is leading a near-hermit lifestyle as a river guide in Thailand before he's reluctantly called to action when a group of missionaries are captured by what must be the most sadistic soldiers in the Burmese army—have been not particularly favorable but nearly all make note of Stallone's physique.
Los Angeles Times critic Kevin Crust referred to the hero's "massive, vein-rippled forearms" and said the actor donned the character of Rambo "like a comfy old suit, a little worse for wear but eminently recognizable."
"His face looks like a misshapen chunk of granite, and his acting is only slightly more expressive, but the man gets the job done," writes the New York Times' A.O. Scott.
Stallone's cellular regeneration seemed to be one of the highlights of the film for the Washington Post's Desson Thompson, who said, simply: "His hair is excellent; so is his skin."