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Stallone 'shunned' by Seagal, Van Damme

Sylvester Stallone


Sylvester Stallone has confirmed that Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme both rejected offers to star in The Expendables.

Speaking to Bang Showbiz, the Rocky star revealed his disappointment that the pair shunned his request to join the action star ensemble in his blockbuster.

"I called Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal and they just had different ideas on their careers," he said. "But I did the best I could, you know?"

Despite the absence of the two stars, Stallone admitted that he was impressed with the cast he had managed to assemble.

"This was all favors, this was really low-budget. Some of these guys worked for almost nothing, including myself.

"It's just the way it is, this never could have been done in the '80s. I certainly couldn't have gotten Bruce [Willis] and Arnold [Schwarzenegger] in the '80s, they would have been too expensive and too busy. They would have taken up the whole budget of the movie."

Stallone then joked: "Jason [Statham] is a lot of money but he's worth it. Seriously, £100 a week is a lot of money!"

The Expendables is released on August 13 in the US and arrives in the UK the following week.

> Stallone: 'Bruce, Arnie were my enemies'

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