‘Tulsa King’ Star Sylvester Stallone Reveals He Never Signed On for Trump’s Hollywood Ambassador Job

When Donald Trump named three famous actors as “special ambassadors” to Hollywood in January 2025, the announcement raised more questions than it answered. Ambassadors are usually sent abroad, not to a neighborhood in California, and nobody was sure what the role would involve. Nearly two years on, the Stallone ambassadorship is back in the headlines because of how the actor says it began.

Trump made the announcement on Truth Social, naming Jon Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone as envoys tasked with winning back business that he said Hollywood had lost to foreign countries. He described the trio as his eyes and ears and promised a new golden age for the industry. The role was never clearly defined, and the official duties of the job have remained vague ever since.

Now Stallone has offered his own account of the appointment in a new interview with The Sunday Times, and it is not the story many expected. The 80-year-old says he never agreed to the position, and that he told Trump the idea was impossible. According to Deadline, which reported on the interview, he added that he would have turned it down had he been asked at the start.

Stallone said he learned about the announcement while watching TV one night, when the news that he, Gibson and Voight would serve in the role appeared on screen. That matches how other reports at the time described the reaction. Gibson said he saw the news at the same moment as the public, and Fox News described Stallone as surprised too.

In the Sunday Times conversation, Stallone laid out why he had doubts. He compared Hollywood to a collection of separate territories, each run by its own ruler, and argued that an outsider cannot walk in and tell six major studios how to operate. He said he, Gibson and Voight are independent types who do things their own way, and that the plan would not work.

He also told the paper that he raised his concerns with Trump and politely stepped away from the idea. Stallone described Hollywood as a corporate world that will change by itself, and he doubted studio executives would want his advice on finance. It is a candid view from a star who has spent more than 50 years inside the industry.

Stallone’s latest remarks stand in contrast to how he talked about the role last year. In a September 2025 interview with The Globe and Mail, he spoke about why he cared about shooting film and television in the United States. He said productions used to stay close to home, while today they travel to places such as Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.

Even then, though, he sounded unsure about practical fixes. He noted that big government subsidies might help newer filmmakers but could upset other unions, and he described the situation as a real catch-22. That view fits with his more recent doubts about whether one ambassador could change anything.

Stallone has been a visible Trump supporter. He endorsed Trump late in the 2024 campaign, and in November of that year he introduced Trump at the America First Policy Institute gala, calling him the second George Washington. In December 2025, Stallone received a Kennedy Center Honor alongside Gloria Gaynor, George Strait, Kiss and Michael Crawford.

The other two ambassadors have also been vocal supporters. Voight said at the time that Hollywood had deteriorated and that he hoped Trump’s help could restore its former glory. Reporters noted in 2025 that the group reflected Trump’s interest in the stars of the 1980s and 1990s.

The ambassadorship may be unclear, but Stallone’s career is very much active. He stars in ‘Tulsa King,’ which was renewed for a fourth season, and a film about the making of ‘Rocky,’ called ‘I Play Rocky,’ is set to arrive in theaters in November. Anthony Ippolito plays the younger Stallone in that movie.

For now, the interview adds a surprising footnote to one of the stranger Hollywood-meets-Washington stories of the past two years. It also raises the question of what the three ambassadors have actually done since the announcement. Stallone’s answer, at least, is that the plan was never going to work.

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