Yes, he played one of the most iconic villains of the 80’s, but there’s so much more! Dolf Lundgren then the Soviet Apollo Creed assassin Ivan Drago. He’s fit, he’s handsome, he’s charming, and damn, he’s our favorite replaceable. He speaks several languages, holds a degree in chemical engineering and earned a scholarship to attend MIT. These are 11 badass facts about Lundgren that you probably don’t know.
Updated October 27, 2022: If you’re a fan of Dolph Lundgren, you’ll be happy to hear that this article has been updated with additional interesting facts and content about the action movie star.
Dolph Lundgren is highly educated with a high IQ, but no PhD
Don’t be fooled by the £250. of muscle he carried around like He-Man in 1987’s Masters of the Universe. Dolph Lundgren is practically a genius. The actor, writer, director and producer was born Hans Lundgren, the son of a language teacher and an engineer for the Swedish government. He graduated from high school with straight As, studied engineering at Washington State University, served his mandatory year with the Swedish Marine Corps, earned a degree in chemical engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology, a master’s degree from the University of Sydney and a Fulbright Scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, though he left MIT after just two weeks to pursue a career in film. as he told Maxim:
“I decided I didn’t want to shake test tubes for the rest of my life,” he told Maxim in 2008. “So I dropped out of school and became an unemployed starving actor for a while.”
Don’t expect him to brag about that big brain of his. When asked if it’s true, rumor has it, that he has an IQ of 160, he replied, “I’m not that smart. I’m smart enough to get a few scholarships. Once since then.”
Dolph Lundgren speaks six languages, but no Russian
No, Russian is not one of them. Lundgren is a brilliant multilingual actor who speaks fluent English and his native Swedish as well as a good amount of German. He can also speak a little Spanish, French and Japanese – at least enough to order drinks and say thank you before kicking some serious ass.
Lundgren’s “Feud” with Jean-Claude Van Damme
Fans of the celebrated action stars were shocked when the duo appeared to engage in a heated argument at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, with Lundgren and Van Damme beginning to push and shove each other before being separated by their respective bodyguards. The incident was caught on camera and the altercation was front-and-center on the steps of the Festival Hall, where onlookers watched in astonishment at the scuffle; it didn’t take long for the “fight” to make headlines.
While the world wondered what caused the discord, the movie stars had the last laugh, because the “feud” was just a publicity stunt devised by Van Damme in an effort to draw attention to their upcoming military sci-fi action movie Universal soldier. The plan proved successful as the film made $95 million at the box office and launched the popular Van Damme action franchise.
Dolph Lundgren is karate champion
He doesn’t pretend for the movies. Lundgren began training in the martial art of karate at the age of 10. At the age of 19 he was part of the Swedish squad at the World Championships in Japan for full contact karate. “You had to be a brown belt, but I was just a green belt, so my instructor gave me one to help me get into the fight,” he told Maxim. “I thought I was going to be killed.” He won his first two fights by knockouts. In the early 1980s, he won two European Championships and the Australian Heavyweight Tournament.
Australia, Grace Jones and James Bond
While studying in Australia, Dolph worked as a bouncer on the Kings Cross nightclub scene. He met pop star Grace Jones while working for security for her performance at the Capital Theater, eventually joining her personal security detail. The couple fell in love and moved to New York City together. (In 2012, Dolph told Men’s Health that he was walking the streets of NYC in the early ’80s, strapped to two guns for protection, one of them in an ankle holster.)
Jones introduced him to famous friends like Andy Warhol. She played a villain A look at a murderthe last James Bond film starring Roger Moore, and helped Lundgren land his first role. He played an accomplice, leading to his big break as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV (produced by the same company). He has called Sydney, Australia “the catalyst” for his career.
Dolph Lundgren puts Stallone in hospital
One day while filming in the UK, Sylvester Stallone wanted the fists to really fly. Dolph hit Sly in the ribs so hard that he put his costar in intensive care with a swollen heart. Lundgren literally has no memory of doing it, narrating Men’s health“I don’t know. [Stallone] keeps talking about it, so maybe he’s right. He did go to the hospital, but I don’t know if it was my punches or the fact that he was so overworked as a director, actor and writer.”
The film’s insurers compared Stallone’s injuries to the types seen in car accidents. “I said, ‘Well, have you seen Dolph Lundgren?” he later told Entertainment Weekly. ‘That’s a truck. That’s a steering wheel. That’s a head-on collision.’ (Luckily he didn’t ask Dolph to actually blow him up The expendables.) The two have had more than one . in recent years drago movie, but it is extinct.
Dolph Lundgren Led an American Olympic Team
Dolph played an East German Olympic gold medalist in the 1994 film Pentathlon. After training with American athletes for the role, he served as team leader for the American modern pentathlon during the 1996 Summer Olympics. “I got involved to save the sport because every year new ones come in and they kick out the old ones” , he told Max. “This is one of the oldest Olympic sports and they thought my name could help. I was just the team manager – the guy who organizes trips.”
Dolph Lundgren boxed a professional fighter
Lundgren agreed to do an exhibition game against former UFC competitor Oleg Taktarov, on Russian TV, after Mike Tyson said no. Despite being 18 years older than his opponent, Dolph went five solid rounds and only lost by decision. UFC fighter Sage Northcutt expressed interest in playing Drago’s son in Creed 2, which according to Men’s Journal would be a great idea. (The role went to a Romanian boxer.)
Dolph Lundgren is a Marvel Movie OG
Sure, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a multi-billion dollar venture, over a decade in, brimming with A-listers, critical acclaim, and fan love. But long before that, before the X-Men movies at Fox, before Sheeteven, there was Dolph Lundgren as the Punisher. Den Of Geek looked back on the 1989 low-budget action vehicle as “the first true Marvel superhero movie.” IGN writer William Bibbiani wrote an editorial stating, “The Dolph Lundgren Punisher movie isn’t as bad as you remember.”
We’ve loved his turn as Frank Castle for years, even with the cheeseball elements, reworked backstory, and the fact that, for some inexplicable reason, he doesn’t wear the signature vigilante skull. Filmed in Australia and starring Oscar winner Louis Gossett Jr., Dolph’s Punisher has some great action scenes, charismatic villains and some great lines, including a joke about a certain Caped Crusader who had his own movie released in the same year.
The band Biohazard sampled one of Dolph’s monologues, words allegedly polished by Lundgren himself on set. Since then, The Punisher has been played by Thomas Jane, Ray Stevenson and the standout favorite Jon Bernthal, who takes full advantage of the prestigious TV approach. But Dolph Lundgren will always be our Frank Castle OG.
Lundgren rejected gladiator
Dolph took a long break from acting to raise his kids, but he could have returned to star in sooner gladiator. He said he was offered a role as the undefeated gladiator coming out of retirement against Maximus. Ridley Scott has said he considered Dolph, but the actor says he passed before Scott (or Russell Crowe) was attached.
In a 2008 interview about The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Scott himself confirmed that Lundgren had, in fact, been a frontrunner for the role of fighter Tigris of Gaul, but was eventually rejected because “As an actor, he just didn’t fit what we were trying to achieve.” The role was eventually played by Danish actor and former strongman Sven-Ole Thorsen.
Dolph Lundgren scares real bad guys
.jpg)
One of our absolute favorite Dolph Lundgren movies is Showdown in Little Tokyo, a buddy cop action movie with the tongue firmly in the cheek that remains underappreciated. One of the coolest stories about his late co-star, Brandon Lee (The crow), is about the time he caught a gentleman in his house while robbing him. “The man was in the bedroom with the VCR in his hands,” Lee explained The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. “He eventually took a knife from the kitchen and we agreed in the living room. I finally took the knife from him and the police came and took him. After he got out of the hospital, he was given two years for burglary and attempted theft.”
Dolph has a similar story, but he didn’t have to fight. He didn’t even have to be there. One night, three robbers broke into his house, tied up his then wife and threatened her. In the middle, one of them saw a family photo and realized who her husband was; they immediately fled.