Stallone hires 30-year-old body double as he resurrects Rambo
By DONNA McCONNELL
Ageing actor Sylvester Stallone is to revive another of his most famous film characters - John Rambo - for one last mission.
But unlike his character in last year's Rocky Balboa, in which he was acclaimed for having a buff body, he will use a 30-year-old body double.
Stallone, 60, will bring back the legendary action hero in a new film about troubled Vietnam war veteran and guerilla warfare expert, set for release in 2008.
Stallone last appeared in the 1988 film Rambo 3, almost 20 years ago.
In the new movie Rambo finds himself recruited by a group of Christian human rights missionaries to protect them against pirates, during a humanitarian aid delivery to the persecuted Karen people of Burma.
After some of the missionaries are taken prisoner by sadistic Burmese soldiers, Rambo gets a second impossible job: to assemble a team of mercenaries to rescue the surviving relief workers
Despite his hardman image Rambo still sports flowing locks and his trademark bandana
Unsurprisingly, Stallone was accompanied on set in Bangkok, Thailand, by a younger fitter body double, who will do some of the stunts the sexagenerian will find too challenging.
The star whose return as Rocky last year was a critical and financial success is doing double-duty on the project as both director and star.
Stallone threw himself into his new project shortly after being charged with importing a banned bodybuilding drug in Australia.
The actor and his entourage of minders were stopped last month at Sydney airport en route to the Australian premiere of his sixth Rocky movie when a routine X-ray of the party's baggage revealed 48 vials of Jintropin, a so-called miracle drug.
Considered a performance-enhancing hormone, its use is strictly controlled in Australia.
Stallone did not appear in court in Sydney, and is expected to be fined up to a maximum of £9,000.
