Sylvester Stallone was snubbed by Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme

Sylvester Stallone was snubbed by Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme when he asked them to star in his new movie.

The actor tried to get the two action legends to join the impressive cast for his new movie ‘The Expendables’ – which features Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jason Statham among other big screen tough guys – but they turned him down.

He said: "I called Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal and they just had different ideas on their careers. But I did the best I could, you know?"

And the 64-year-old actor-and-director admits he had to rely on many of his Hollywood friends working for next to nothing so he could get the heavyweight cast together.

Stallone told BANG Showbiz: “This was all favours, this was really low budget. Some of these guys worked for almost nothing, including myself. It’s just the way it is, this never could have been done in the 80s. I certainly couldn’t have gotten Bruce and Arnold in the 80s, they would have been too expensive and too busy. They would have taken up the whole budget of the movie.”

He jokingly added: “Jason is a lot of money but he’s worth it. Seriously £100 a week is a lot of money!”