Trump Attends College Football Game, Taylor Swift Skips Chiefs Game for VMAs | with Sylvester Stallone, Luke Bryan | Sunday, September 27

0:00Welcome, everybody. Welcome, welcome, welcome to The Tonight Show! This is it. You're here. You may not have very excited about this. Sylvester Stallone is my guest tonight!

0:14We are coming to you after tonight's big game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Denver Broncos. Yeah, big game. Here on the East Coast, a lot of people stayed home to watch the games because we have hit with a very powerful nor 'easter. Yeah, there was so much rain this weekend, people didn't drive to the Giants game. and they kayaked. Here in New York, the Giants and the Titans played, and there were wind gusts up to 70 miles an hour. Do we have footage of it? This is...

0:43I'm sorry. Actually, it turns out that was just Trump sneaking onto his plane back to Washington. Sorry. Excuse me. Pardon me. Excuse me. Pardon. Hello. Well, we just watched a great game tonight between the Broncos and the Rams. -"Yeah !" Some football fans there. I feel like this is obvious, but which team do you guys root for? -"Rams !" Rams, right. Yeah, you painted your whole body, huh? What was the hardest part to paint? -"Arms !"

1:20Makes sense. Well, I appreciate you guys coming all the way from L.A. I mean, what's farther than that, you know? -"Mars !" That's true. That's true. Hey, it can be very stressful watching your team play. Do you ever watch anything to relax after the game? ASMR! I've heard of that. I've heard of that. Okay, lightning round. Get ready. Taco Bell's slogan is live... MASS! Correct. What sound does a pirate make? AR! You're good. You're good. What prefix would you use to describe Taylor Swift before she got married? Miss! And how about after she got married? Mrs!

2:07Okay. Okay, last question, and I'm gonna stump you. How do you guys have so much energy? Uh-oh. Cool! Oh, yeah, you're right. Grand fans, everyone. There you go.

2:31Wow. Well, some more football news. Today, the Kansas City Chiefs took on the Miami Dolphins, but Taylor Swift wasn't there. Oh. Because she was at the VMAs in Los Angeles. Yeah. But that didn't stop the NFL from trying to get Swifties to watch the game, though. Check out this promo they ran today. It's Chiefs versus Dolphins, and you know who is definitely gonna be there. That's right, it's Taylor. Dolphins cornerback Reese Taylor. I mean, that's ridiculous. You know what I'm saying? But look at this other promo they ran. It's Chiefs versus Dolphins, and a giant star will be in the house. That's right, T.S.

3:10And when you think of the initials T.S., you think... Chiefs offensive guard Trey Smith. It's confusing to watch it. Yeah, look at this last one here. I can't believe they made this. It's Chiefs versus Dolphins, and this game is gonna be explosive. A complete blowout, because a certain Taylor will be there. It's Taylor Farms lettuce.

3:34That's not good. That's crazy. Anyways, I got to say, there's so many incredible players this year, I'm not sure that I can even pronounce all of the players' names. Not a problem for me. I know how to pronounce every name of every player in the NFL. I'm sorry, Higgins. You know how to pronounce the name of every player in the NFL? Yeah, I'm an announcer. It's kind of my job. You know? Go ahead. Test me. Give me some names. I guess I can test you real quick. I mean, who's this? Oh, come on. Easy. That's Nick Jonas. Okay. Who's this? The Olive Garden. Come on. Give me some harder ones. Come on.

4:11Rapid fire. You want to rap rapid-fire. Okay, uh, who's this? Okay, Judge Judy. Dairy Queen cones. Bad toupee. Oh, DeMario and DeLuigi. Lick a mustache. Jaeger bombs. Uh-huh. Data Trader Joe's. Uh-huh. Banana Minion. Yeah. Kohl's and Kmart. Okay. Kissing cousin. Mm-hmm. Anus pebbles. Yeah. Oh, and penis swells. Easy. All right, very good. Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you, Higgins.

4:49Meanwhile, yesterday, President Trump traveled to the University of Tennessee to attend the school's football game against the Texas Longhorns. Can we see the stadium? That's a lot of orange there. Finding Trump in that crowd is like the hardest Where's Waldo of all time. Look for the red tie. Yep, Texas beat Tennessee 20-17. It was a very exciting game, but it did have one moment that was a little out of the ordinary. Check this out. Unsportsmanlike conduct. Defense, number one. Simulating using the restroom. That's real. That's real. Simulating using the restroom. That's an odd call, yeah. But that wasn't even the strangest moment of the game.

5:31Listen to this other call just a few minutes later. Unsportsmanlike conduct, defense number 93 for simulating using the restroom right next to number one, even though there were three other invisible make-believe urinals available. On top of that, number 93 made eye contact with number one and tried to strike up a conversation about the weekend. Seriously, who does that? Yeah, I think that's a good rule.

6:02Well, some business news. I read that because of inflation, Pepsi is raising prices of Doritos, Ruffles, and other chips. Ooh. Lay's is dealing with a lot of inflation, too, but that's just the amount of air in their bags. Oh, there's three in here. Well, get this. A Delta flight was forced to turn around and make an emergency landing due to an unusual smell on board. Southwest heard and was like, See, this is why all of our plane windows roll down. And finally, I heard about a 78-year-old woman in Scotland who just earned the world record for the oldest female Fortnite streamer on Twitch. When asked how she did it, she was like, I was trying to send an e-mail.

6:57Oh, they love you. We love you. Welcome back, Sylvester Stallone. You're looking good, bud. Thank you. So are you. I mean, your energy is infectious. Oh, good. I appreciate it. I try it. I try it. I love the book. I can't wait to get into this. I'm learning so much in the book. One is that you played a little football in high school. We're following the football game here. Are you really? I got a show, Sylvester Stallone, in high school football. Look at this.

7:26How were you at football? I was terrible. They used to call me wood hands. Wood hands? Because I never played sports as a young guy. And I'd go to school and I wanted to play football like this. Literally wood hands. So the entire, after the season was over, and the entire summer, I literally walked around with a football. I slept with a football, ate with a football. How you doing, football? How you doing? You know, I conversed with it until finally, the next year, I was ready to play. And I'd like to say that we didn't win one game. Okay, all right. Well, that's very... Zero to ten. That's almost impossible.

8:02Yeah, it's very impossible. But it was a nice picture. Yes, and actually, I do have a picture of you, number 22, going for a tackle there. There we go. Look at that. That's looking good. I think that was right before my concussion. Thank you for bringing that. Which led to all this. By the way, the fam was good. Everyone's good. Oh, my God. Everything is just great. Beautiful wife backstage. I know Sophia got engaged. She did get a great... Oh, it's hard for me to say it because, like, it's time to have, you know, a new life of her own, but she found a great man, great fiancé, Michael. Do you remember meeting him for the first time?

8:36I feel like it must be tough dating Sylvester Stallone's daughter. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, intimidating. Well, you liked him. I did. I like him very, very much. I think he's a stand-up guy, great. Good looking, got everything going. But I remember once, there was a very famous man. He did not like the guy his daughter was dating. He said, could you do something? So I went home, got my Rambo outfit, headband, fake blood, knife. Oh, yeah. Full-on bandolero. So he knocks on the door, and he's like this little comedian type guy, the hat on sideways. And I go, what do you want? He goes, if you touch her, it's like touching me.

9:21I will cut you from here to here." That was it. He never came up. Because he left? Oh, for sure. He wasn't in on the joke at all. I love that you did it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to talk about your great memoir, The Steps. Thank you. It is a great read. It's very much your sense of humor. So many interesting stories. I did not know anything about you. Of course, I think I know everything about you because you're famous, but it's not true. You know, you start seeing all these things. And I love it's called The Steps. I recently watched Rocky with my 13-year-old. Right, right. Two months ago, before we even knew that you were booked on the show, I said, you got to watch this movie.

10:00Rocky's one of my favorite movies, one of my favorite actors. And we're watching the movie. She loved it, by the way. It holds up. Thank you. And as you're working out and you're running and you go up the steps and you're out of breath the first time, she goes, my daughter goes, look. No, he's got nothing going on. She goes, look, he's out of breath. He can't even make it up the steps. And I'm like, ooh! You're falling right into the trap! I can't wait till it pays off at the end. I'm like, oh, well, he's got to work out. He's got to work hard. I'm like, oh, I love it. I thought it was such a fantastic movie, and obviously, it changed everything.

10:34But there's so many stories in here that I'm jumping into. I'm like... Well, the thing is, Jimmy, you know, everyone, everybody that's all, everyone has a story. And unfortunately, a lot of people aren't able to tell their story. And the opportunity presented itself. I've been around a long time, a lot of ups and downs. And I thought, I got to pass on some of these adventures and maybe you'll get some sort of instruction out of it. Like, you're not alone. It's life is tough and you got to keep punching. Yeah, that's what I got from it. You think you know, but you don't know. And then all the obstacles that keep getting thrown at you.

11:12There's a whole thing in here I didn't even know the ending of Rocky. which, spoiler alert, if you haven't seen it, you had too much time to watch it. I don't care about this. But the making of Rocky, the ending was different. It's really interesting, because at the very end, Rocky walks out, and he's with Adrian. It is trash everywhere. People have seen the fight and gone home, and they're basically forgotten. Like, 10 minutes later, that moment passed. And I thought, this is kind of depressing. My God. It is depressing. Actually, the picture on the poster is that scene we're talking about, which is not even in the movie.

11:46And I begged the producer, I said, we got to end on a high note. He said, we have no money. I said, well, we'll figure it out. We went out, went around, asked a few friends. We got about 12 people. And we couldn't even build the ring. We built maybe 10 feet. It's plywood. The ropes are sagging. We're like holding the ropes up. For real. In no way. And then we just said, keep walking in a circle, walking in a circle, walking in a circle. And Rocky's like, yo, what are you doing? Get that through out of my face. And then she comes in the ring, and he goes, where's your hat? And I went, there it is.

12:18He doesn't care about the fight. He just cares about falling in love. And the music swells and they kiss. And I go, that was the peak of their life. So I wanted to freeze on that second. So... I mean, that's crazy.

12:34That's how it changed. And in this, you said you had the first public screening of Rocky, and at first, people did not like it. They walked out. It walked out. I thought, oh, this film is really tracking well. You know, little people in their private screening rooms say, oh, getting great reviews. I went back. I was an usher. So a year later, I walked back into the same theater. I'm an usher and I'm sitting down to watch Rocky. I go, oh, my God, this is a full 360. I would say there's 11 people in the audience and eight left. I went, seriously. And the studio's going, oh, man. You can hear it.

13:13Your voice is a lot of mumble-mumble. And so a week later, they ran it for real in a miracle. Thank you, Rocky. Yeah. People liked it. The movie went on to win three Oscars, including Best Picture. Come on. That's how you do it. It's so inspirational. Thank you. I have to ask, are you doing an Audible book? Yeah. I want to tell you right now, guys, audio books are harder than this book. Really? No, no, no, no. I worked with Scott. It was a... You need a producer to... It's like 10, 12 days, but when you slur like me, it's like, very fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have to go back and try. You know, it started to sound like Sylvester the Cat.

14:02Yeah, exactly. At least you're in the ballpark. It turned out very, very well. And what's phenomenal, Bill Conte, who did the miraculous music for Rocky, which I think is the heart and soul, 50 years later, he had to play the piano. He plays through the audio book. No way. Oh, yeah, it's unbelievable. It's never been done. No way. So the same emotions that you're feeling in the movie, it's like, it's a certain magic this man has. It's just something you're born with. like these musicians, it just pours out of them. They can't help it. And then when you put it to another art form, like words, it just enhances everything.

14:42I was going to ask, how did you afford or get Bill Conti for the original rock? Because we were both broke. No one wanted it. So one broke, oh, yeah, yeah. But no one knew he was a genius. No one. I mean, at first, they wanted to use rock and roll music. like for example in Rocky's in the ring, he goes, Jimi Hendrix, don't bump, bump, bump. I go, no, this is not romantic. You know what I mean? Yeah. No. So he comes in and he actually does his symphonic, but very Italian heartfelt. And he just killed it. I mean, it's, I think one of the great scores he came up with in history. And he did it in one day.

15:24How? Imagine that guy, he recorded in one day without any playback. He's just playing to a blank wall. I mean, it's a modern miracle. And then you edited it to his music? Yeah. You know, you hope this works. You know what I mean? I'm getting emotional thinking of how great it is. I love it so much. Congrats on this. Thank you very much. This will be underneath a lot of people's Christmas trees this year. I want to talk about Tulsa King. Congratulations on this. Oh, thank you. We're back for season four. It's another hit. You can't stop. You can't miss. Oh, yes, I can. Yeah, yeah. How do we describe what's happened with Dwight this season?

16:01Well, this season, you know, what happens is you get to a point where you have to keep escalating, and you try to find adventures in situations where you're always the underdog. Because once the hero becomes the hero, eh, it's kind of boring. So he always needs to find stronger villains, this and that. Well, he's got Hitman coming up. He's got New York coming after him. We got everything in the show, including a dinosaur. There you go. Come on, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Sylvester Stallone, everybody. Season 4 of Tulsa King premieres October 16th on Paramount+.

16:37And his book, The Steps, comes out Tuesday. We'll be right back with Luke Bryan, everybody. It's always great to see you. Thank you for coming on a big Sunday show for us. It means a lot to us. Just met Sylvester Stallone. I'm fired up. I know. Come on. That's cool, right? It is. The guy. Well, he sat right here. Yeah, come on. Luke Bryan's sitting here right now. Come on. I will say happy belated birthday... Oh, thank you. -...over the summer. Big 5-0. It was the 5-0. Wow. Looking good. If it's looking good, congrats. AI. AI's got me looking good. No, no, no. You're real. You're real. How do you celebrate 58?

17:16How was it? We loaded up tons of friends, tons of couples, and we went out west to Idaho, had a golf course community, and there's a lot of trout fishing out there. So we did some trout fishing and golfing. And, you know, celebratory cocktails every evening. Yeah, why not? For too many days in a row. Yeah. Is it a lot to have all those friends? How many friends you got? You know, it was one of those situations. You know, sometimes when you travel in groups, it doesn't work. But we had plans for everybody to go horseback riding. We really didn't let anybody get an opinion. Yeah. That's good advice.

17:59I mean, we weren't standing around at 4.30 seeing where everybody wanted to eat. We were just like, you're eating here. Yes. You're having this. What you're eating. Yeah, or you're not eating. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Any other advice for... Well, I learned that on your 50th birthday, if you drink like you're 20, you actually feel like you're 90. Okay. Okay. So just know that. Yeah, just for those 49-year-olds out there. Yeah, yeah, just know going in. Don't follow my lead. Now, we're following a big football game here on NBC, and I know that you're a big football fan. I know you're in Nashville now.

18:38Yes. Tennessee is where you live now with the fam, and your son's a quarterback. It is... I mean, like, my weeks... Really? Are really stressful and full of all of these emotions. And I was actually watching replays in the dressing room a minute ago, you know, analyzing plays. But it's truly amazing. Do you scream and yell as they football down? If you hear a little bit of rasp tonight, it's not me doing that on purpose to create a mood in the song. Okay, yeah. It's because I did it Friday night to myself. You did. And I try to, like, slap my legs and cheer. Yes. But it was just too much of a nail-biter.

19:20Because this is your instrument. It is my instrument. Yes. But you yelled at your son out there. He's a quarterback, right? He's a quarterback, which is a whole other level of stuff. Genetically, I never thought that I would produce a quarterback. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't have to give him that. You did, though. I'm going to give credit to my wife on that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But so the whole fall, well, I'm almost wrapped with my tour, but I go work on a Thursday night, come home, Friday night game, and then I go back out on a Saturday. So, but, man, it's just been, you know, the dopamine and endorphins and stuff of watching your child go out there and call the plays and run the offense, and it's been pretty...

20:09Do you get nervous? Nervous isn't even... Yeah, I would... It's not even an analogy. I mean... Like, I would be happy if my kid got benched. I'd be like, awesome! Sit down, enjoy yourself, dude. See you tomorrow. We're all safe. But, you know, we're sitting there, and it's just a lot to take in, but we're kind of settling into the season. It's his first year starting, and he's a senior, and he really waited his turn. So a lot of things he's learning and going. It's really amazing. Good for him. And I know you had a big concert on Thursday in Nashville to celebrate your new album, Signs. Yes. Yes, a big one.

20:50Now, when you talk about friends and stuff like that, I'm like, you have really famous friends, like, good friends. You had this concert, and people showed up for you. Well, we were a little skeptical that they would show. But they did. They all showed. Well, we were, you know, we announced the show in April, and we billed it as Luke, Bryan, and Friends. But we hadn't called any friends yet. Ooh. So that seems to be like, hey, this is my buddy Larry. He's my neighbor, and he hasn't played, but he's my friend of mine. They were like, boo! Well, so, as, you know, as we're about a month out, and we're calling the Friends...

21:27Like, we need some friends now to show up. Some of the Friends are already committed, and we're like, we're running out of Friends. And then I thought for a minute I was going to have to start Venmo-ing these friends to show up. Or maybe just be Luke Bryan and friend. Friend. Yeah, just take the S off. And the one. Yeah. But we had a great night. We had Carrie Underwood. Stop it. Carrie Underwood came out. Oh, my God. Jason Aldean, Jane Brown, Dierks Bentley. Oh! Darius Rucker. Darius, yes. I almost forgot Darius. Yeah. And we... Chris Stapleton? And Chris Stapleton showed up. It was awesome. That's too many friends.

22:06That's too many friends. The first time I never had any fans want a refund. Chris Stapleton is next level, too, man. So what people may not know is it was an amazing night, but Chris Stapleton actually wrote one of my songs, Drink a Beer, that was one of really historically one of my most, like, emotional songs. And this was before Chris became Chris. And he actually performed it with me at the CMA Awards. And he is the background singer on the actual record. No way. So he and I finally got to really do a real... Duet and get in there. Intimate moment and just... And when you're... Well, the interesting thing that I didn't know about Stapleton is when he's such an amazing singer.

23:02I have him as my number one on Mount Rushmore, by the way. He's my favorite singer. Wow. Well, then I'm staring at... Your favorite? And he really stares at you. Like, while he's singing at you. Oh. Because he's watching your lips. Oh. And then as he's watching your lips, it's very intimidating, but... I don't know if I like it. And then the whole time, I'm kind of falling in love. Wow, my God, you guys... You thought maybe you had a spark or something. Are you not getting none of that right now? No, no, no. It wasn't that enough. But really... He's one of those duets. Well, man, he's looking at you.

23:41You don't want to let him down. You know, he's a Kentucky guy, a bluegrass guy, man. They watch you sing, like, so they can really... Yeah, but you're one of the best. I got to be honest. You're so fantastic. You've been on the show so many times, and you're playing for us tonight. But you're one of the best. We love you. Thank you. You're on Matt Rushmore as well, but let's talk about Signs. Why the name Signs? It's just a fun title, and I guess now that they reminded me, there was another title named Signs, and there should be just more. There's another song called Signs. So there just should be another.

24:18And there should definitely be an album named Signs. Named Signs, yeah. But, like, you feel like different Signs? What's the vibe of the album? The premise of this is, like, you remember back, there was, like, a trend online where if I win the lottery, there'll be signs. Like, I may not tell you. Yeah, I may not tell you, but... But just look at my behavior. Yeah, something happened to me, yeah. You'll notice if there's a, I don't know, a pool getting dug in the backyard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, something's happening. But the song's about a breakup, and we kind of used that. But love how the album came together.

24:54and... There's party songs on here. Party songs. Fish hunt, golf drink. That's very self-explanatory. There's some Jesus songs on here. There is a Jesus song. We always got to have those for me personally. Yeah. I like that. Praying by the rules. Praying by the rules. I see what you did there. Yeah, well done, bud. And then down goes the whiskey. That's going to be one of my jams. Come on, yeah. I'm good at that. Oh, yeah, me too. We're gonna see you soon. You'll perform for us. But congrats. The album's out. Here we go, guys. Luke Bryan signs. It's out now. Hey, Luke Bryan. Thanks for listening to The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon.

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