1. Dolph Lundgren went on to play lead roles in over 80 action-oriented films including Masters of the Universe, Red Scorpion, The Punisher, I Come in Peace, Showdown in Little Tokyo, Joshua Tree, Men of War, Silent Trigger, and Blackjack.
95 Facts About Dolph Lundgren
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Dolph Lundgren continued playing villainous roles, most notably as Sergeant Andrew Scott in three Universal Soldier films, co-starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.
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Dolph Lundgren returned to prominence in 2010 with the role of Gunner Jensen in Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables alongside an all-action star cast.
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Dolph Lundgren has since appeared in the well-received films Aquaman, Castle Falls, which he directed, Don't Kill It, and Showdown at the Grand, among others.
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Dolph Lundgren returned to the role of Ivan Drago in Creed II.
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Dolph Lundgren's voice acting work includes Seal Team and Minions: The Rise of Gru.
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Dolph Lundgren received a degree in chemical engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in the early 1980s and a master's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney in 1982.
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Dolph Lundgren has been practicing martial arts since the age of 16, earning the rank of 4th dan black belt in Kyokushin karate, and becoming the European champion in 1980 and 1981.
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Dolph Lundgren lived in Spanga until the age of 13, when he moved to his grandparents' home in Nyland, Angermanland.
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Some sources wrongly state 1959 as his year of birth, but Dolph Lundgren himself has confirmed it to be 1957.
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Dolph Lundgren has two sisters, Katarina and Annika and an elder brother Johan.
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Dolph Lundgren 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.
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Dolph Lundgren has said that, as a child, he was insecure and suffered from allergies, describing himself as a "runt".
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Dolph Lundgren showed a keen interest in drumming and had aspirations to become a rock star.
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Dolph Lundgren took up Kyokushin karate at the age of 10, and began lifting weights as a teenager.
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Amidst his years of studying, Dolph Lundgren honed his karate skills by training in a dojo for five years, and attained a black belt in Kyokushin by the late 1970s.
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Dolph Lundgren captained the Swedish Kyokushin karate team, and was a challenger at the 1979 World Open Tournament.
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Dolph Lundgren won the European championships in 1980 and 1981, and a full-contact karate tournament in Australia in 1982.
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In 1982, Dolph Lundgren graduated with a master's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney.
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Dolph Lundgren was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to MIT in 1983.
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Dolph Lundgren moved with Jones to New York City, where he dabbled in modeling at the Zoli Agency but was described as "a bit too tall and muscular for a model's size 40".
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Dolph Lundgren earned a living as a bouncer at the Manhattan nightclub The Limelight, which was housed in the former Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion, working with Chazz Palminteri.
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Dolph Lundgren quit studying at MIT after two weeks to pursue acting.
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Dolph Lundgren said after being exposed to the entertainment business, he found it more attractive and rewarding than chemical engineering, so he decided to pursue a career in acting.
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Dolph Lundgren made his film debut in the 1985 James Bond film A View to a Kill, Roger Moore's final film as 007, in the minor role of Venz, a KGB assassin.
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Dolph Lundgren tried out for the role, but as he himself has stated, he was initially turned down because he was too tall.
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Dolph Lundgren eventually beat 5,000 other hopefuls to land his breakout role opposite Stallone, Carl Weathers, and Brigitte Nielsen.
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Dolph Lundgren hit Stallone so hard during the filming of a fight scene that Stallone was in intensive care in the St John's Hospital for nine days with a blood pressure of 290, due to swelling of the pericardial sac around his heart.
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Dolph Lundgren later fought in a real boxing match against former UFC fighter Oleg Taktarov, and lost via decision.
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In 1987, Dolph Lundgren released on home media a workout video called Maximum Potential, and he got his first lead role as He-Man in Masters of the Universe, based on the popular children's toyline and cartoon, directed by Gary Goddard.
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Dolph Lundgren plays a Soviet KGB agent who is sent to an African country to assassinate the leader of an anti-communist rebel movement, but eventually switches sides.
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In 1989, Dolph Lundgren then starred as Marvel Comics adaptation The Punisher playing the title role.
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In 1990, Lundgren starred in Craig R Baxley's sci-fi thriller I Come in Peace opposite Brian Benben, Betsy Brantley, Matthias Hues, and Jay Bilas.
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Dolph Lundgren plays a tough Houston cop with an inner sensitivity, who does not let the rules of police procedure prevent him pursuing his mission to wipe out a gang of drug dealers who killed his partner.
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In 1991, Dolph Lundgren starred in Manny Coto's action film Cover Up opposite Louis Gossett Jr.
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Dolph Lundgren portrays a US Marine veteran turned reporter, who finds his own life in jeopardy after stumbling across a political cover-up.
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In 1992, Dolph Lundgren starred in the sci-fi action picture Universal Soldier directed by Roland Emmerich.
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At the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren were involved in a verbal altercation that almost turned physical, but it was believed to have only been a publicity stunt.
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In 1993, Dolph Lundgren starred opposite Kristian Alfonso and George Segal in Vic Armstrong's Joshua Tree.
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Dolph Lundgren plays Wellman Anthony Santee, a former racecar driver who is framed by police officer Frank Severance for the murder of a highway patrolman.
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In 1994, Dolph Lundgren starred in Bruce Malmuth's Pentathlon as an East German Olympic gold medalist pentathlete on the run from an abusive coach.
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Dolph Lundgren trained with the US pentathlon team in preparation for the role, which later led to him being selected to serve as the Team Leader of the 1996 US Olympic Modern Pentathlon team during the Atlanta Games, to promote the image of the sport and to coordinate planning and other details between the team and the United States Olympic Committee.
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Later in 1994, Dolph Lundgren appeared in Perry Lang's Men of War alongside Charlotte Lewis and BD Wong, as Nick Gunar, a former Special Ops soldier who leads a group of mercenaries to a treasure island in the South China Sea.
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In 1995, Dolph Lundgren appeared in Robert Longo's Johnny Mnemonic, co-starring Keanu Reeves.
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Dolph Lundgren plays Karl Honig, a Jesus-obsessed hitman and street preacher who wears a robe and carries a shepherd's staff.
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Later in 1995, Dolph Lundgren appeared in Ted Kotcheff's The Shooter, an action drama in which he plays Michael Dane, a US Marshall who gets caught up in politics when he is hired to solve the assassination of a Cuban ambassador.
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In 1996, Dolph Lundgren starred in Russell Mulcahy's Silent Trigger, playing a former Special Forces agent who joins a secretive government agency as an assassin.
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The Motion Picture Guide to the films of 1997 said, "this stylish but empty thriller gives square-jawed Dolph Lundgren another shot at straight-to-video immortality".
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In 1997, Dolph Lundgren starred in Frederic Forestier's The Peacekeeper, playing Major Frank Cross of the US Air Force and the only man who can prevent the president being assassinated and with the ability to thwart an imminent nuclear holocaust.
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Later in 1998, Dolph Lundgren appeared alongside Bruce Payne and Claire Stansfield in Sweepers as Christian Erickson, a leading demolition expert and head of an elite team of specialists, trained to disarm mine fields in a humanitarian minesweeping operation in Angola.
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In 1999, Dolph Lundgren played a mercenary in Isaac Florentine's Bridge of Dragons, a military pilot in Anthony Hickox's Storm Catcher, and a cop who's a former boxer in Jill Rips, directed by Hickox, based on a 1987 novel by Scottish writer Frederic Lindsay.
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In 2000, Dolph Lundgren starred in The Last Warrior as Captain Nick Preston under director Sheldon Lettich.
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In Damian Lee's Agent Red, co-starring Alexander Kuznetsov and Natalie Radford and Randolph Mantooth, Lundgren plays a soldier trapped on a submarine during the Cold War who must work with his wife, a virologist, to prevent a terrorist chemical attack against the United States.
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In 2001, Lundgren starred in Hidden Agenda, directed by Marc S Grenier.
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Dolph Lundgren plays Jason Price, an ex-FBI agent who protects a witness.
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In 2004, Lundgren appeared opposite Polly Shannon in Direct Action under Sidney J Furie, portraying Sergeant Frank Gannon, an officer who has spent the last three years on the Direct Action Unit task force, fighting gang crime and corruption and after he leaves he is hunted down by former colleagues for betraying the brotherhood.
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Dolph Lundgren's next starring role was in the science fiction picture Retrograde.
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In 2004, Lundgren made his directorial debut with The Defender, when he replaced Sidney J Furie, who was sick during pre-production.
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Dolph Lundgren stars, playing the bodyguard of the head of the National Security Agency during a war on terror.
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In 2007, Dolph Lundgren directed and starred in the Mongolia-based action adventure, Diamond Dogs.
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Dolph Lundgren plays a mercenary hired by a group of fortune hunters to act as their guide and bodyguard.
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Later in 2007, Dolph Lundgren wrote, directed and starred in the modern western film, Missionary Man alongside Charles Solomon Jr.
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In 2008, Dolph Lundgren starred in the direct-to-video action flick Direct Contact.
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Dolph Lundgren plays an ex-US Special forces operative on a rescue mission.
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The story was inspired by a concert Madonna put on for Russian President Vladimir Putin, although Dolph Lundgren has likened the pop singer to Britney Spears.
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In 2009, The Dolph Lundgren Scholarship was instituted in his name, which is awarded to the student with the best grades at Adalsskolan in Kramfors, the school where he himself studied.
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Dolph Lundgren then reunited with Jean-Claude Van Damme in Universal Soldier: Regeneration, where he plays Andrew Scott's clone.
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Later in 2009, Dolph Lundgren directed and starred as a businessman whose shady past as a KGB special agent is discovered in the hit-man thriller Icarus.
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In 2010, Dolph Lundgren made a guest star appearance on the TV series Chuck in the fourth-season premiere episode, "Chuck Versus the Anniversary", as Russian spy Marco, with references to Rocky IV's Ivan Drago.
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Dolph Lundgren then played a drug-addled assassin in the ensemble action film The Expendables, in a cast which includes popular action stars such as Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, and Randy Couture as a group of elite mercenaries, tasked with a mission to overthrow a Latin American dictator.
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Dolph Lundgren was one of three hosts for the 2010 Melodifestivalen, where the Swedish contribution to the Eurovision Song Contest is selected.
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Dolph Lundgren's appearance was hailed by critics and audience, particularly his rendition of Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation".
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Dolph Lundgren played the lead role in Uwe Boll's In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds, and had supporting roles in Jonas Akerlund's Small Apartments and a thriller called Stash House.
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In 2013, Dolph Lundgren starred alongside Steve Austin in The Package.
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Dolph Lundgren starred in a number of other films later that year, including Legendary, Battle of the Damned, Ambushed, and Blood of Redemption.
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In 2014, Dolph Lundgren co-starred opposite Cung Le in the action film Puncture Wounds, and reprised his role as Gunner Jensen for the third time in The Expendables 3.
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Dolph Lundgren then wrote, produced, and starred alongside Tony Jaa and Ron Perlman in Skin Trade, an action thriller about human trafficking.
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On 21 January 2015, Dolph Lundgren started filming straight-to-video film Shark Lake on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
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Dolph Lundgren portrays Agent Reed, a law enforcement officer who must go undercover as a kindergarten teacher, in order to recover a missing flash drive from the Federal Witness Protection Program.
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Dolph Lundgren starred in the music video of Imagine Dragons's Believer, which was released on 7 March 2017.
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Dolph Lundgren reprised his role of Ivan Drago from Rocky IV in Creed II, the 2018 sequel to Creed.
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Dolph Lundgren played an older, impoverished Drago in the film, which introduces the character's son, Viktor.
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Later in 2021, Dolph Lundgren starred and directed in the 2021 action film Castle Falls as Richard Ericson, in his first feature film as directed in nearly 12 years.
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In 2022, Dolph Lundgren starred in a series of Old Spice advertisements to promote a new antiperspirant line of deodorant spray.
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Dolph Lundgren wrote an autobiographical fitness book, Train Like an Action Hero: Be Fit Forever, published in Sweden on 9 August 2011, offering tips he learned over the years to work out in various situations.
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Dolph Lundgren cites a better quality of life as having inspired him to maintain his physical fitness.
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Dolph Lundgren cites dead lifting and squats as the best exercises for muscle building.
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Dolph Lundgren is not a heavy drinker, but has professed on many occasions to being fond of tequila and cocktails, citing his knowledge in chemical engineering as "making really good drinks".
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Dolph Lundgren speaks Swedish and English fluently, as well as smaller amounts of French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish, but is not fluent in those five languages as has often been reported.
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Dolph Lundgren supported Everton when he lived in Europe, but developed more of an interest in international football tournaments after moving to Los Angeles.
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Dolph Lundgren was whisked off to the United States, where he completed his final thesis.
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Dolph Lundgren later stated he believed the intruders to be Eastern European and had asked contacts in Bulgaria to investigate them, but to no avail.
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Dolph Lundgren was in a relationship with Jenny Sandersson from 2011 to 2017.
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Dolph Lundgren became engaged to Norwegian personal trainer Emma Krokdal, nearly 40 years his junior, in June 2020.
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In May 2023, Dolph Lundgren revealed that he had been battling kidney cancer since 2015.