TONIGHT on ITV, Sylvester Stallone will be seen trying to save motorists and passengers trapped underground after a freak explosion seals a New York river tunnel, in the disaster movie Daylight.

While on the big screen he’ll be in action man mode leading a band of mercenaries on a mission, in the movie The Expendables.

He’s on a mission to prove that superheroes don’t rule the roost on the screen.

That’s why he’s called on old friends Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger to go into action.

Times may change, but the actor who played Rambo and Rocky isn’t about to stop being an action man. “Every generation has to find their own hero, whether it’s John Wayne or James Dean, and this generation has defined the superhero as theirs,” he says.

The Expendables started life as a more intellectual story, before Stallone – who wrote, directed and stars as crew leader Barney Ross – reworked more than 100 drafts of the script. It’s now an actionfilled tale of men on a mission to overthrow the murderous dictator of a fictitious nation and save the girl and their gang.

“I wanted to revisit a certain kind of feeling, a certain kind of film-making, a certain kind of mentality,” he says. “I set out to make one of those films that comes along once in a great while by taking an old formula and making it contemporary.”

Pickof theday The 64-year-old felt a tremendous amount of pressure to produce an action film worth seeing.

“It’s a lot of pressure because sometimes you come in with a film, you know you’ve got a major turkey, and it’s not even Thanksgiving...” he jokes. “It’s really hard to make an action film, there’s a great expectancy.”

Jason Statham and Jet Li were first on Stallone’s wish list, before he decided to expand his powerhouse cast.

“One time I thought of Ben Kingsley as the bad guy, Forest Whitaker and 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson), but I realised it wouldn’t work, and decided to go really ‘old-school’,” he recalls.

“Now there aren’t any – no disrespect – bad-asses out there who just want to get it on. I’m not saying they’re reluctant to do it, there’s just not the opportunity.”

Friends like Rocky IV co-star Lundgren said yes, but others, including Eighties’ action stars Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Segal, turned him down.

Stallone was keen for them all to fight, not just realistically, but without the use of computer-generated effects.

“I wanted to shoot it with brains and brawn, not modern technology. These guys know how to hurt you. And the audience hasn’t seen anyone who can run through a wall and snap you like a pretzel, for real,” he admits.

The father-of-five was “pretzeled” himself, breaking his neck and tearing his shoulder while filming a fight scene.

“I still have two more operations to go on my shoulder,” he reveals. “You get older, you still want to keep proving yourself, it’s just in the blood. It’s such a physical, testosterone-fuelled movie because men are naturally competitive and they want to keep upping the ante.

“I think of myself as an 18-year-old with arthritis. I know we’re called geezers and told we’re past our prime, but I said, ‘Wait until you see this’.”

Stallone’s no stranger to directing, having helmed seven films before, but still found it tough to combine his various roles. “It was complex, because my method is to learn everybody’s lines,” he says.

“I write the script and then I learn the entire script. That way I can concentrate on the actors. Jason will tell you he’s always being given different lines on the spur of the moment. You have the formula and the blueprint, then once you have it, you just ad lib.”

He’s done more serious movies, but reckons people probably aren’t interested in seeing him do that any more. “I’m past my prime of doing dramatic films,”

he says.

■ The Expendables (15) is now showing in cinemas.

■ Daylight: tonight, ITV1, 10.35pm.