The sly wisdom of action hero Sylvester Stallone

(AFP)

Sylvester Stallone might be 66, he might not have made a decent film for a while, and he might talk a bit funny, but could he still have you in a fight? Fuhgeddaboudit!

In an interview in today's Shortlist magazine, he confounds and delights in equal measure with a serious of pronouncements that leave us in no doubt: Step off Seagal, move aside Arnie, Sly is back!

On aging:

"People were saying 'Urgh, has he got varicose veins?' So I thought, f*ck it, and covered them with a tattoo of my wife."

On being ripped, yet smooth:

"Looking as ripped as I do on the Bullet TO The Head film poster is a temporary situation - you can't maintain it. When I first saw myself I thought, "F*ck, I look sickly!" I'm actually very smooth in real life."

On living like a king:

"Saturday and Sunday it is on, with the cheesecake and the doughnuts and the pumpkin pie. I swear to you, I train my daughters to eat like that."

On parenting:

"In the movies, I kill guys with an axe. In real life, I can't control a nine-year-old girl

On resolving conflict:

"Steven Seagal said that he 'didn't associate with that kind of element' meaning me. So I slammed him up against a wall."