Sylvester Stallone has revealed that filming a stunt for the 1981 thriller Nighthawks was one of the most terrifying experiences of his career, after he was suspended from a helicopter high above New York's East River. The revelation offers a striking example of the physical risks actors routinely took during the era before stricter on-set safety regulations were introduced, and reinforces Stallone's reputation for committing bodily to his roles even in his less celebrated films.

Speaking to critic Roger Ebert, Stallone described dangling roughly 250 feet above the water while battling a lifelong fear of heights, with the wind buffeting him and the risk that the supporting steel cable could snap. His unease was heightened after witnessing a man die by jumping from the nearby 59th Street Bridge the day before filming began. The article notes this stunt predated tighter industry safety standards, which only tightened following the fatal 1982 accident on the set of The Twilight Zone: The Movie, and follows an earlier fatality during filming of Clint Eastwood's The Eiger Sanction.