The surprising success of last year's Rambo proved that today's theatrical audience is being underserved when it comes to neck-crunchings, arrow-piercings, and exploding heads, which is why for the last few months Sylvester Stallone has been deeply ensconced filming The Expendables. A deliberately old-school action extravaganza with a seventy million-dollar budget, the film boasts an all-star roster of action notables that includes modern stars like Jet Li and Jason Statham as well as classic action men such as Stallone and Schwarzenegger (Jean-Claude Van Damme famously refused a role in the film after claiming Stallone insulted him during negotiations).
On board as the film's villain is another vintage action lead: blonde Swedish giant Dolph Lundgren, who first came to prominence as the unstoppable Soviet squaring off against Stallone in 1985's seminal study of Cold War relations, Rocky IV. That film was, of course, such a mega-success that Lundgren followed up with a flurry of big-budget actioners of his own such as Red Scorpion, Masters of the Universe, and Roland Emmerich's vastly underrated Universal Soldier.
As they tend to do, the cultural winds eventually shifted and the bodybuilder-centric, save-the-girl style of action that dominated in the '80s and early '90s gave way to the more fantastical, comic-oriented fare that now rules the box-office. To keep the rent paid, Lundgren and other roundhouse-kicking luminaries of his era moved to the field of direct-to-DVD movies, where they could crank out modestly-scaled (often simplistic) retreads of their classics for a devoted fan base eager to cough up a few bucks for them.
Although he has spit out some two dozen of these films over the last several years, Lundgren remains not only a fan favorite but also a man of ambition who increasingly writes and directs his own material and strives to maintain his foothold in the world of big-budget, theatrically-released film. While recently making the rounds for his latest film, Direct Contact, Lundgren took the time to call up SuicideGirls for a chat.
Ryan Stewart: Sorry to read about your recent home invasion. The paper said that the crooks recognized you in family photos around the house?
Dolph Lundgren: Yeah, it was actually a ways back. I don't know how it got to the press so late, but it was in January. It's more or less true. We've always managed to be very safe, but now I've got armed guards and the whole nine yards, cameras everywhere. And the burglars did recognize me -- my wife told me so.
RS: Have you ever had to defend yourself in real life?
DL: Hmmm...no. I used to work a door in New York when I was a kid, but I'm a guy who has been either lucky or smart enough not to get into fights. Except in the ring, of course!
RS: When you perform your fight scenes in movies, is it more important to you that it look good or that nobody get too bruised up?
DL: It's more important that the fights look good. You're always going to get a little bit bruised up. It's just a matter of not wanting to get any kind of permanent injuries. You won't have to go to the hospital or anything like that if you're lucky, but usually in a film, especially in a bigger action movie, somebody always gets a little bit hurt. That's just the way it is. I don't remember getting banged up on this movie, but it all kind of blends together unless you have a big injury. I had an injury to my foot from a motorcycle thing that happened on another film I did. A Harley fell on my foot, and I had that injury with me when I came to this picture and I think I did something else to it during one of the fight scenes. But I didn't have to take any stitches or anything like that, so it was pretty good.
RS: With a project like Direct Contact, what can you do to make it your own? Do you choose your own weapons?
DL: It depends on what it is. This is a film where I knew [writer] Les Weldon and [writer/director] Danny Lerner very well and they asked me about the script a little bit and we made a couple of changes to it. And yeah, with the weapons you can usually pick your own, or at least you usually have a say, but it depends on the director. For instance, Sly Stallone is very detail-oriented, and he may have his mind set on something and he'll just present it to you and usually it's very good, so you don't even have to worry about it. Some directors will just more or less give the actor their choice. But usually, with fight scenes the fight coordinator will work it out and then you'll look at it and make some changes to it to make it your own. So, it depends a little bit. Obviously, when I direct myself, the whole thing is my vision.
RS: Is there a martial arts discipline that deals with gunplay? How to grab a gun away from someone?
DL: Not necessarily the original martial arts, because they were created before there were those weapons. It's usually unarmed combat, but there is stuff with swordplay and with sticks and stuff like that. But that's more of a military technique, like the Green Berets training, with a mix of jujitsu or special forces training. They deal with gun disarming, which is really dicey of course. It's easy to teach, cause if some maniac's got a gun and his finger is on the trigger and he's about to blow you away, you'll realize that you're not going to do that much, unless you totally have to, if the guy is imbalanced or something. If it's a certain caliber weapon, if you can assert that, you can probably take a shot to the guts and then they'll put him down and you can call the doctor. But if you get shot in the head...[laughs] It does happen, I suppose, that people disarm gunmen, but not that often in real life.
RS: Why do you think these DTV action movies are still focused on '80s style action? They haven't really embraced the shift towards superheroes and comics.
DL: That's a really interesting question. I think part of it is cost-oriented, you know? It's cost-related, because to do any superhero movie, by definition, you're gonna have somebody be flying through buildings and you have to make that look good. Those effects mean extra money. There are always ways you can try to make your film feel bigger, though not necessarily a superhero film. I don't know if the superhero trend is one that's going to last another ten years or twenty years. It's only been going on for about ten years, or at least that's when it's gone nuts. As far as people flying between buildings, I don't think De Niro's gong to be doing that anytime soon, but you never know.
Stallone didn't look bad flying between buildings and I've kind of almost done it. I guess it's just something that the young generation has a dream of doing, things like that. I guess it could be a trend, but a movie like The Expendables has a seventy million-dollar budget and it's an old-school, kick-ass action movie where people are fighting with knives and shooting at each other, breaking necks and shit like that. While there are some airplane sequences and a bit of chases, it's still very down to earth in a way. So, while these things do go in cycles, I think a lot of it is cost-related.
RS: So you don't want credit for being ahead of the curve by playing He-Man?
DL: [laughs] Well, they had Superman before and I think maybe Batman came before He-Man, I can't remember. But it's always a bit weird to be doing "flying through the air" stuff. I think when you come from a fighting background, and I've done martial arts, then you can do it but you feel a bit silly. Or I do, anyway. But no, I didn't know that was coming. I didn't expect that every superhero would come to life. Some of them have been making a lot of money, so obviously there's a huge audience for them.
RS: I noticed that Direct Contact and your next movie, Command Performance, both have a Russian angle. I'm sure you built a great Russian fan base with Rocky IV. Are you trying to retain them?
DL: Well, I think that's a little bit of a coincidence because Les Weldon and Danny Lerner developed Direct Contact and they are based out of Bulgaria, that's where the studio is. They probably wanted to include an Eastern European element because it's cheaper to shoot. You don't have to make it look like New York City or Santa Monica Blvd. or something like that. Even though people do try, usually with not very good results.
While I was shooting Direct Contact I was prepping the other one and, yeah, they both have a Russian element. You're right in saying that I do have a big Russian fan base, even though I don't even play a Russian in Command Performance, I play an American, believe it or not. The Russian thing is something I think about a lot, and it does end up in my movies. I kind of like Russia -- there's something mysterious about it.
RS: You know what I always found interesting about Rocky IV? How futuristic it is. Drago has this computerized training station and Rocky has an artificially intelligent robot. Where'd he get that?
DL: [laughs] It's very clever. He gave the robot to Paulie. I remember he says to it, "Come on, honey, get me some coffee!" I should ask Stallone where he got it. It was ahead of its time in a lot of things, that movie. The equipment we used was very high-tech for the time. Some of those machines were being developed for astronauts, they didn't even have them available in those days. These days you see them in every gym, but back then it was just weights and maybe a Nautilus machine. They didn't have any of the stuff we had in that film. It was ahead of its time.
RS: Are you wrapped on The Expendables?
DL: No, I'm still working. We're shooting all through June. We started in Brazil and that was back when I was still shooting Icarus, which was another movie that I directed. It's a long shoot and it's a pretty big movie. It's certainly the biggest film I've ever been in and I think it's the biggest film Stallone's ever been in. That I can remember, anyway, and he's the one directing it, which is cool. He's kind of a role model for people -- if you just keep going for long enough, people will stop having bad things to say about you and then it's all good.
RS: How's the mix on the set? With all those action stars around there must be some dick-measuring.
DL: It's a good mix. Stallone is Stallone, you know? Nobody messes with him. He's the writer and director and star. Everybody is really respectful of him, because they know that it's because of him that they are there. Also, he's working his ass off every day and night and it's a very tight crew -- these people are surprisingly nice. He has the best fight coordinators in the world on this film and the best stunt and car guys too. Stallone is Stallone and there's only one of him. I don't think anybody has starred in more big action movies than him. I thought about that yesterday, when he was giving me some direction on how to grip the steering wheel during a car chase. He's done more than me and whenever he wants to give me some advice, that's great because I can give that advice to other people.
RS: You just did another Universal Soldier movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme. Did you ask him about why he turned down Sly's offer?
DL: I didn't, actually. I don't know what happened. I didn't ask him, but I don't think it was a good idea. Who knows, though. With all these stories floating around you just don't know. And I didn't ask Sly about it either.
RS: And Steven Seagal never got a call, apparently. Is he just too much of an oddball? No one wants him around?
DL: No, I think it's just all up to Stallone. I think he could still be in it, if there was something for him. There's still some time here, and I'm actually hearing some other names being mentioned here and there, but we'll see. I can't tell you anything about who, but you know the Governator might be in there, we'll have to see how that goes. But I really think that anybody who asks, they would say yes.
RS: You mentioned role models earlier. You've said before that Clint Eastwood is yours -- why?
DL: Because he was a guy that was underestimated through half of his career, as a cowboy with reactionary or fascist views. At least that was the case in Europe, where they boycotted his movies. People thought he was just some dumb guy who carried a gun, but then people started looking back and realizing that he directed some really cool movies. He was about sixty-one years old when Unforgiven came out and that's when everybody said "Hey, this guy is a good director," you know?
Then his career really took off and instead of being remembered as a cowboy, he's going to be remembered as one of the greatest directors that America has produced. And he's still a screen icon, which is terrific. Stallone is a bit like that, too. People don't have anything negative to say about him anymore. They've said everything already and now it's like, well, shit. You know, I've started directing and I've directed five movies already, but still, Clint Eastwood was my age in 1981, so I have a ways to go!
Direct Contact is available on DVD and Blu-Ray formats in stores everywhere on June 2.
On board as the film's villain is another vintage action lead: blonde Swedish giant Dolph Lundgren, who first came to prominence as the unstoppable Soviet squaring off against Stallone in 1985's seminal study of Cold War relations, Rocky IV. That film was, of course, such a mega-success that Lundgren followed up with a flurry of big-budget actioners of his own such as Red Scorpion, Masters of the Universe, and Roland Emmerich's vastly underrated Universal Soldier.
As they tend to do, the cultural winds eventually shifted and the bodybuilder-centric, save-the-girl style of action that dominated in the '80s and early '90s gave way to the more fantastical, comic-oriented fare that now rules the box-office. To keep the rent paid, Lundgren and other roundhouse-kicking luminaries of his era moved to the field of direct-to-DVD movies, where they could crank out modestly-scaled (often simplistic) retreads of their classics for a devoted fan base eager to cough up a few bucks for them.
Although he has spit out some two dozen of these films over the last several years, Lundgren remains not only a fan favorite but also a man of ambition who increasingly writes and directs his own material and strives to maintain his foothold in the world of big-budget, theatrically-released film. While recently making the rounds for his latest film, Direct Contact, Lundgren took the time to call up SuicideGirls for a chat.
Ryan Stewart: Sorry to read about your recent home invasion. The paper said that the crooks recognized you in family photos around the house?
Dolph Lundgren: Yeah, it was actually a ways back. I don't know how it got to the press so late, but it was in January. It's more or less true. We've always managed to be very safe, but now I've got armed guards and the whole nine yards, cameras everywhere. And the burglars did recognize me -- my wife told me so.
RS: Have you ever had to defend yourself in real life?
DL: Hmmm...no. I used to work a door in New York when I was a kid, but I'm a guy who has been either lucky or smart enough not to get into fights. Except in the ring, of course!
RS: When you perform your fight scenes in movies, is it more important to you that it look good or that nobody get too bruised up?
DL: It's more important that the fights look good. You're always going to get a little bit bruised up. It's just a matter of not wanting to get any kind of permanent injuries. You won't have to go to the hospital or anything like that if you're lucky, but usually in a film, especially in a bigger action movie, somebody always gets a little bit hurt. That's just the way it is. I don't remember getting banged up on this movie, but it all kind of blends together unless you have a big injury. I had an injury to my foot from a motorcycle thing that happened on another film I did. A Harley fell on my foot, and I had that injury with me when I came to this picture and I think I did something else to it during one of the fight scenes. But I didn't have to take any stitches or anything like that, so it was pretty good.
RS: With a project like Direct Contact, what can you do to make it your own? Do you choose your own weapons?
DL: It depends on what it is. This is a film where I knew [writer] Les Weldon and [writer/director] Danny Lerner very well and they asked me about the script a little bit and we made a couple of changes to it. And yeah, with the weapons you can usually pick your own, or at least you usually have a say, but it depends on the director. For instance, Sly Stallone is very detail-oriented, and he may have his mind set on something and he'll just present it to you and usually it's very good, so you don't even have to worry about it. Some directors will just more or less give the actor their choice. But usually, with fight scenes the fight coordinator will work it out and then you'll look at it and make some changes to it to make it your own. So, it depends a little bit. Obviously, when I direct myself, the whole thing is my vision.
RS: Is there a martial arts discipline that deals with gunplay? How to grab a gun away from someone?
DL: Not necessarily the original martial arts, because they were created before there were those weapons. It's usually unarmed combat, but there is stuff with swordplay and with sticks and stuff like that. But that's more of a military technique, like the Green Berets training, with a mix of jujitsu or special forces training. They deal with gun disarming, which is really dicey of course. It's easy to teach, cause if some maniac's got a gun and his finger is on the trigger and he's about to blow you away, you'll realize that you're not going to do that much, unless you totally have to, if the guy is imbalanced or something. If it's a certain caliber weapon, if you can assert that, you can probably take a shot to the guts and then they'll put him down and you can call the doctor. But if you get shot in the head...[laughs] It does happen, I suppose, that people disarm gunmen, but not that often in real life.
RS: Why do you think these DTV action movies are still focused on '80s style action? They haven't really embraced the shift towards superheroes and comics.
DL: That's a really interesting question. I think part of it is cost-oriented, you know? It's cost-related, because to do any superhero movie, by definition, you're gonna have somebody be flying through buildings and you have to make that look good. Those effects mean extra money. There are always ways you can try to make your film feel bigger, though not necessarily a superhero film. I don't know if the superhero trend is one that's going to last another ten years or twenty years. It's only been going on for about ten years, or at least that's when it's gone nuts. As far as people flying between buildings, I don't think De Niro's gong to be doing that anytime soon, but you never know.
Stallone didn't look bad flying between buildings and I've kind of almost done it. I guess it's just something that the young generation has a dream of doing, things like that. I guess it could be a trend, but a movie like The Expendables has a seventy million-dollar budget and it's an old-school, kick-ass action movie where people are fighting with knives and shooting at each other, breaking necks and shit like that. While there are some airplane sequences and a bit of chases, it's still very down to earth in a way. So, while these things do go in cycles, I think a lot of it is cost-related.
RS: So you don't want credit for being ahead of the curve by playing He-Man?
DL: [laughs] Well, they had Superman before and I think maybe Batman came before He-Man, I can't remember. But it's always a bit weird to be doing "flying through the air" stuff. I think when you come from a fighting background, and I've done martial arts, then you can do it but you feel a bit silly. Or I do, anyway. But no, I didn't know that was coming. I didn't expect that every superhero would come to life. Some of them have been making a lot of money, so obviously there's a huge audience for them.
RS: I noticed that Direct Contact and your next movie, Command Performance, both have a Russian angle. I'm sure you built a great Russian fan base with Rocky IV. Are you trying to retain them?
DL: Well, I think that's a little bit of a coincidence because Les Weldon and Danny Lerner developed Direct Contact and they are based out of Bulgaria, that's where the studio is. They probably wanted to include an Eastern European element because it's cheaper to shoot. You don't have to make it look like New York City or Santa Monica Blvd. or something like that. Even though people do try, usually with not very good results.
While I was shooting Direct Contact I was prepping the other one and, yeah, they both have a Russian element. You're right in saying that I do have a big Russian fan base, even though I don't even play a Russian in Command Performance, I play an American, believe it or not. The Russian thing is something I think about a lot, and it does end up in my movies. I kind of like Russia -- there's something mysterious about it.
RS: You know what I always found interesting about Rocky IV? How futuristic it is. Drago has this computerized training station and Rocky has an artificially intelligent robot. Where'd he get that?
DL: [laughs] It's very clever. He gave the robot to Paulie. I remember he says to it, "Come on, honey, get me some coffee!" I should ask Stallone where he got it. It was ahead of its time in a lot of things, that movie. The equipment we used was very high-tech for the time. Some of those machines were being developed for astronauts, they didn't even have them available in those days. These days you see them in every gym, but back then it was just weights and maybe a Nautilus machine. They didn't have any of the stuff we had in that film. It was ahead of its time.
RS: Are you wrapped on The Expendables?
DL: No, I'm still working. We're shooting all through June. We started in Brazil and that was back when I was still shooting Icarus, which was another movie that I directed. It's a long shoot and it's a pretty big movie. It's certainly the biggest film I've ever been in and I think it's the biggest film Stallone's ever been in. That I can remember, anyway, and he's the one directing it, which is cool. He's kind of a role model for people -- if you just keep going for long enough, people will stop having bad things to say about you and then it's all good.
RS: How's the mix on the set? With all those action stars around there must be some dick-measuring.
DL: It's a good mix. Stallone is Stallone, you know? Nobody messes with him. He's the writer and director and star. Everybody is really respectful of him, because they know that it's because of him that they are there. Also, he's working his ass off every day and night and it's a very tight crew -- these people are surprisingly nice. He has the best fight coordinators in the world on this film and the best stunt and car guys too. Stallone is Stallone and there's only one of him. I don't think anybody has starred in more big action movies than him. I thought about that yesterday, when he was giving me some direction on how to grip the steering wheel during a car chase. He's done more than me and whenever he wants to give me some advice, that's great because I can give that advice to other people.
RS: You just did another Universal Soldier movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme. Did you ask him about why he turned down Sly's offer?
DL: I didn't, actually. I don't know what happened. I didn't ask him, but I don't think it was a good idea. Who knows, though. With all these stories floating around you just don't know. And I didn't ask Sly about it either.
RS: And Steven Seagal never got a call, apparently. Is he just too much of an oddball? No one wants him around?
DL: No, I think it's just all up to Stallone. I think he could still be in it, if there was something for him. There's still some time here, and I'm actually hearing some other names being mentioned here and there, but we'll see. I can't tell you anything about who, but you know the Governator might be in there, we'll have to see how that goes. But I really think that anybody who asks, they would say yes.
RS: You mentioned role models earlier. You've said before that Clint Eastwood is yours -- why?
DL: Because he was a guy that was underestimated through half of his career, as a cowboy with reactionary or fascist views. At least that was the case in Europe, where they boycotted his movies. People thought he was just some dumb guy who carried a gun, but then people started looking back and realizing that he directed some really cool movies. He was about sixty-one years old when Unforgiven came out and that's when everybody said "Hey, this guy is a good director," you know?
Then his career really took off and instead of being remembered as a cowboy, he's going to be remembered as one of the greatest directors that America has produced. And he's still a screen icon, which is terrific. Stallone is a bit like that, too. People don't have anything negative to say about him anymore. They've said everything already and now it's like, well, shit. You know, I've started directing and I've directed five movies already, but still, Clint Eastwood was my age in 1981, so I have a ways to go!
Direct Contact is available on DVD and Blu-Ray formats in stores everywhere on June 2.
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
crazyben:
Have you guys tried to interview Aleksei Balabanov yet? His movies Brother, Brother 2, Of Freaks and Men, Dead Man's Bluff and Cargo 200 are all excellent and he has a huge following in Eastern Europe-- his movies are really damn good! I think he likely has a good support base among the SG-types who are into film, he's really one of the more interesting film makers at work today in Europe. Sure, his movies have some poppish elements, and always ridiculous action, but they're extremely well-made and he seems to be getting into more and more refined philosophical and technical territory the longer he makes films. Just an idea. I would certainly like to see him interviewed here on SG.
scotty113:
A little mate, but better late than never: I loved this interview. I never really put much thought into how far ahead of their time movies like Rocky 4 actually were. It's cool to get a Dolph's Eye View on things. He's a pretty interesting fellow!