Peter Farrelly says Stallone gave him one very important piece of advice for making ‘I Play Rocky’

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The new movie, out Thursday in Boston, tells the story of how a then-unknown writer and actor got "Rocky" made with himself in the lead role.

When producer Toby Emmerich, the onetime chairman of Warner Bros. Pictures, sent Peter Farrelly the script for a movie about the making of “Rocky,” the director known for hit comedies like “There’s Something About Mary” and “Dumb and Dumber” was dubious.

But after reading Peter Gamble’s screenplay, Farrelly realized he did not, in fact, know the story — at least not the most curious and compelling parts of it — and he signed on to direct “I Play Rocky,” which opens in Boston on Thursday.

Sylvester Stallone’s quest to write and star in “Rocky,” at a time when he was virtually unknown in Hollywood, was as improbable as the 1976 movie itself. Indeed, when Stallone appeared on “The Tonight Show” two weeks after “Rocky” was released, Johnny Carson told his TV audience: “If they made a movie about how this movie came about, you wouldn’t believe it.”

The director’s first task was finding an actor who could embody — not just impersonate — the young Stallone, capturing the New Yorker’s slow, almost slurred baritone and his slouched yet swaggy gait. Stallone’s performance as Rocky Balboa, the small-time fighter who nearly becomes the heavyweight champion of the world, helped make him a global star. Getting the right guy to play him was imperative.

“The toughest thing about making this movie, obviously, was going to be casting,” Farrelly said after a private screening at the Coolidge Corner Theater in September.

While Stallone had no involvement, financial or otherwise, in making “I Play Rocky,” the 80-year-old actor did meet with Farrelly and offer him a bit of casting advice.

“He said, ‘I recommend you hire a relative unknown,’” the director said in a recent video interview with the Globe.

Enter Anthony Ippolito. The 27-year-old actor, who won’t be unknown much longer, portrayed young Al Pacino in “The Offer,” the Paramount+ series about the making of “The Godfather.” He heard that a “Rocky”-related project might be in the works and made an audition tape, which he filmed with a…

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