“I’ll break you in two”: this is the line that made him most famous. The one uttered by the cold boxer Ivan Drago before tackling Rocky Balboa. It was him who said it Dolph Lundgren, the actor who gave the face to the cruelest of the hero’s rivals in the film saga. But behind the icy gaze and the powerful muscles hides a complex man with a difficult past, which he is no longer afraid to talk about.
Dolph Lundgren, in the ring to defend himself from his abusive father
Dolph Lundgren, said in a candid interview with Corriere della Sera, she is an intellectual. A true man of letters, passionate about literature and with always a new title on the bedside table. Cinematographically he is passionate about Sergio Leone and the maestro Federico Fellini, yet he has always held bad guy roles in action films that were not very elite. And, even in his life, his place was found in the ring.
“It was some sort of revenge or reaction to my father– the actor confessed – that physically, From the time I was 4 until I was 13, he abused me, but he also committed them on my mother. So in my late teens I decided to become a fighter and I had good success in karate. I wanted to feel strong so I could protect myself.”
And he has truly become strong, even though there are certain evils from which nothing can make you immune. Lundgren had cancer: “I fought it for seven years. He taught me things, above all to rethink and love the incredible life I had had up until then, and to love others more. He taught me to be grateful to the talent of the doctors, to my powerful physique thanks to which in some ways I was able to cure myself and to the universe which brought me positive energies. Now I try to be nice to everyone. Cancer has profoundly changed me”.
Success as Ivan Drago in Rocky
Born in Stockholm in 1957, Dolph Lundgren came to the cinema through the back doors. As a young man, due to his knowledge of martial arts and powerful physique, he became the bodyguard of the famous singer Grace Jones. With the right connections, almost by chance, he got a small part in a James Bond film. And then came the role of Ivan Drago in Rockywhat made him a legend and one of the best-known actors in action films Hollywood.
Of his first meeting with Sylvester Stallone he remembers that “he wore long hair and was very tanned. I was a nervous 26 year old. I was a karate champion, he told me I needed to build some muscles.” And after he put them on, these muscles: “I think I caused them a blow to the heart during a fight which forced him to be hospitalized for a week.” But no hard feelings: “Now we are great friends, we talk about our daughters and the wounds we suffered for 40 years in action films.” Even those who provoked each other.
