ABC/Lou Rocco(NEW YORK) — The Academy Awards are this Sunday night on ABC, and you can get an in-depth look at the careers of some of the nominees on tonight’s special edition of 20/20. It’s called Journey to the Oscars, and it’s anchored by ABC’s Robin Roberts.
During the hour-long special, Robin sits down with Best Supporting Actor nominee Sylvester Stallone of Creed, Best Actress Nominee Brie Larson of Room, Best Actor nominee Bryan Cranston of Trumbo and Best Director and Best Actor nominees Ridley Scott and Matt Damon of The Martian. Each nominee will discuss the key moments that have defined them as artists and put them on the path to Hollywood’s biggest night.
On the special, Sylvester Stallone talks about struggling as an out-of-work actor who couldn’t make ends meet before Rocky made him a star in the ’70s. “I couldn’t even get cast as an Italian,” Stallone tells Roberts. “I said, ‘If there is one movie I can definitely get into, it would be The Godfather because there’s a party scene and there’s three hundred guests.'” But, Stallone reveals, “They said no.”
He then decided to take matters into his own hands and wrote the screenplay for Rocky in three and a half days. Though he said he was offered $360,000 for it, Stallone refused to sell the screenplay unless he could star as Rocky. “I just didn’t understand how the rules of life were played at that point but this character I understood,” Stallone said.
The resulting film not only won an Oscar for best picture in 1977, but it also gave birth to a franchise and made Stallone a movie star. This year, Stallone reprised his iconic role in Creed, a revival of the franchise directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan.
Also on the special, first-time nominee Brie Larson says her portrayal of a young mother held captive with her son in Room was something that had echoes of her own childhood. As a young girl, Larson moved to Los Angeles, where she shared a cramped studio apartment with her sister and their newly single mother.
“We lived in just a studio apartment with just a room and a bed that came out of the wall, and my mom couldn’t afford even a Happy Meal. We ate Top Ramen,” Larson tells Roberts. “I had no toys, and I had like two shirts, a pair of jeans and that was it. But I had my Mom to myself and I remember it being the coolest period of time. I loved it. I really loved it.”
She adds, “For me, Room is an opportunity to relive an aspect of my childhood that I hadn’t put a ton of thought into…It’s such a powerful metaphor for me now, and it trips me out that this movie is the thing that’s given me that experience.”
“It’s saying goodbye to the seven-year-old that was in the studio apartment that was blissfully unaware and also so hopeful of what was going to happen [and] saying goodbye to my old normal,” says Larson. “[My character] has to commit to living in a bigger, more complicated world, and that’s what I have to do as well.”
Journey to the Oscars airs tonight at 10pm ET on ABC.
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