Dolph Lundgren Interview on the Jon Stewart Show (May 18, 1995)

Описание: Hans Lundgren (/ˈlʌndɡrən/, Swedish: [ˈdɔlːf ˈlɵ̌nːdɡreːn] (listen); born 3 November 1957[1]), better known as Dolph Lundgren, is a Swedish actor, filmmaker and martial artist. His breakthrough came in 1985, when he starred in Rocky IV as the imposing Soviet boxer Ivan Drago. Since then, Lundgren has starred in more than 80 films, all of them in the action genre.

Lundgren received a degree in chemical engineering from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in the early 1980s and a master's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney in 1982. He holds the rank of 4th dan black belt in Kyokushin karate and was European champion in 1980–81. While in Sydney, he became a bodyguard for Jamaican singer Grace Jones and began a relationship with her. He received a Fulbright scholarship to MIT and moved to Boston. Jones convinced him to leave the university and move to New York City to be with her and begin acting, where, after a short stint as a model and bouncer at the Manhattan nightclub The Limelight, Lundgren got a small debut role as a KGB henchman in the James Bond film A View to a Kill.

After appearing in Rocky IV, Lundgren portrayed He-Man in the 1987 science fantasy film Masters of the Universe, Lt. Nikolai Petrovitch Rachenko in Red Scorpion (1988) and Frank Castle in the 1989 film The Punisher. Throughout the 1990s he appeared in films such as I Come in Peace (1990), Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991), Universal Soldier film series (1992, 2009, 2012), Joshua Tree (1993), Men of War (1994), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), Silent Trigger (1996), and Blackjack (1998). In 2004 he directed his first film, The Defender, and subsequently directed The Mechanik (2005), Missionary Man (2007), Command Performance (2009), Icarus (2010), Castle Falls (2021) and upcoming film Wanted Man (2023), also starring in all of them.

After a long spell performing in direct-to-video films since 1995, Lundgren returned to Hollywood in 2010 with the role of Gunner Jensen in The Expendables, alongside Sylvester Stallone and an all-action star cast. He reprised his role in The Expendables 2 (2012) and The Expendables 3 (2014). Also in 2014, he co-starred in Skin Trade, an action thriller about human trafficking he co-wrote and produced. He reprised his role of Ivan Drago in Creed II (2018), and is due to reprise his role as Gunner Jensen in The Expendables 4.[2][3] He appears in Aquaman (2018), playing the father of Mera. He also had a recurring role in the fifth season of Arrow.

Early life[edit]

The Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Hans Lundgren was born on 3 November 1957 in Spånga, the son of Sigrid Birgitta (née Tjerneld; 1932–1992), a language teacher, and Karl Hugo Johan Lundgren (1923–2000), an engineer (M.Sc.) and economist (MBA) for the Swedish government. He lived in Spånga until the age of 13, when he moved to his grandparents' home in Nyland, Ångermanland.[4][5][6] Some sources wrongly state 1959 as his year of birth,[7][8] but Lundgren himself has confirmed it to be 1957.[9][10][11] He has two sisters, Katarina and Annika and a younger brother Johan.[6] Lundgren claims his father was physically abusive and vented his frustration on his wife and eldest son. He has stated that, during his tirades, his father would call him a "loser", which motivated him later as he grew more ambitious to prove himself. But he also said, "I still love my father, no matter what happened. There are many things about him I still admire. As a child, I was probably too much like him, very stubborn—perhaps that's what he couldn't deal with."[6] He has cited his troubled relationship with his father as the reason he developed a desire to participate in heavy contact sports such as boxing and karate.[6]

He was first credited as Dolph Lundgren with the release of Rocky IV. The name "Dolph" came from a relative on his mother's side.[12]


The Limelight nightclub in Manhattan
Lundgren has said that, as a child, he was insecure and suffered from allergies, describing himself as a "runt".[6][13] He showed a keen interest in drumming and had aspirations to become a rock star.[6] At age seven, he tried judo and Gōjū-ryū. He took up Kyokushin karate at the age of 10, and began lifting weights as a teenager.[13] Lundgren stated that "My dad always told me that if I wanted to make something special with my life, I had to go to America."[6] After graduating from high school with straight A's, he spent some time in the United States in the 1970s on various academic scholarships, studying chemical engineering at Washington State University and Clemson University.[14] He studied chemical engineering for a year at Washington State University between 1975 and 1976,[15] prior to serving his mandatory one year in the Swedish Coastal Artillery at the Coastal Ranger School. In the late 1970s, he enrolled at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and graduated[when?] with a degree in chemical engineering.