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| Giant Swede | ||||||||||||||||||
| Dolph Lundgren |
With thirteen major films in his list of acting credits since starting in 1985, Dolph Lundgren is developing a career that is taking him beyond the macho roles suited to his 6' 5" athletic physique that brought him fame in "Rocky IV" opposite Sylvester Stallone and "Universal Soldier" with Jean Claude Van Damme. He is working with a New York theater troupe he founded called Group of Eight, both producing and acting. His portrayal in last year's "Johnny Mnemonic" as a flamboyant psycho street preacher earned critical praise: the LA Times said he was "explosively fanatical and funny.. he actually gives the best performance in the movie." Dolph earned a masters degree in Chemical Engineering, and could have gone on to MIT, but made the choice to pursue acting instead. In addition to Swedish and English, he speaks German and "a little" French, and some Japanese. The first project of his New York film company Thor Pictures was the dramatic feature "Pentathlon" which he co-produced. An accomplished athlete with asecond degree black belt in Kyokushin karate, and also involved in swimming, boxing, kickboxing, running, squash and free climbing, he is the leader of the 1996 U.S. pentathlon team, coordinating various planning and promotional activities. Lundgren spoke from his home in Sweden. What are the projects up next for you? Lundgren: We'll start one in September, and the other right after that. One is pretty much set, and the other we're still looking for a director, but it will be set in a month or so. | |||||||||||||||||
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Are you finding some film projects with the kind of complex characters you have been looking for? Lundgren: Yes and no. I think I've realized that part of my duty to myself as an actor is to find, not just good material, but to work with good directors. When you come from an action movie background, which I do, it can be hard. You have to find material that'll attract a director who perhaps wouldn't want to do action, but there's something in the material that will interest them, and that way I'll get to work with somebody who has more vision and who is more of an artist and who'll give the film complexity. And will allow my performance to have some complexity and won't be afraid of that. There's a Swedish project I'm working on that was written by a very good writer, he's pretty famous here. He's written a number of books - one that was made into the film "My Life As A Dog" and directed by Lasse Hallstrom. He wrote the period piece we're putting together, and my character is really interesting. Another one is more of a traditional action adventure movie, and we're working on the script now and trying to find a director who would make something special out of it. And there's another project that's kind of dark and unusual, with an element of the supernatural in it. | Universal soldier | |||||||||||||||||
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| Kyokushinkai |
Speaking of discipline, you're still involved with karate and other sports and martial arts. You have a second degree? Lundgren: That's correct. In the style I do, which is Japanese karate, second degree is the second highest technical you can have. Third is the highest, and fourth and above are more honorary. A number of years ago, when I went to the world championships to do a demo, Japan offered me a third degree. I'm a lot older than most second degree black belts, because I stopped training over here when I was about 22. But I didn't want to get it free, I wanted to work for it, and it's been tough finding time to do that; it's a pretty rough grading procedure. But hopefully I'll be able to do it this year or next You now live in both Stockholm and New York; are you working on some film projects in Sweden? Dolph Lundgren: There are two projects I am working on here, one with the company called the Swedish Film Industry, and another based on a series of novels. But I probably won't get to do those before next year because I have two films in the states that I'll do first. One can only do so much. My interest over here is to do something in Swedish, or in a mix of Swedish and English. | |||||||||||||||||
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