Dolph on Expendables!

Our man JimmyO recently had the distinct pleasure to sit down and chat with a living, breathing, ass-kicking legend – Dolph Lundgren. While we’ll have the full interview next week, JimmyO was able to put Dolph in a headlock (not really) and squeeze out some details on THE EXPENDABLES and his reteam with Jean Claude Van Damme on a UNIVERSAL SOLDIER remake. Here’s a quick tease of what to including his character in EXPENDABLES and his favorite scene in the movie:

I have to say, THE EXPENDABLES, everybody is excited about that film. Everybody I know seems to be f*cking stoked about that. How did it come about?

[Laughing] Well, Stallone wanted to do a kind of DIRTY DOZEN type of picture with a bunch of action guys. So he came up with the idea about this group of mercenaries, they all have problems of various sorts. And Stallone is the leader who put it together. You know, I was just asked by him and I read the script and he has this one character in it that has changed quite a bit in the last six months. But he’s an interesting guy. He’s a bit of a f*ck up and he’s got a lot of problems but he’s a good friend of Sly. And it is kind of like a family with its problems, and I’m like the outcast to some extent and it changes back and forth. I loved the script and you know, he started hiring a lot of famous people and I’m pleased to be a part of it.

It really is a dream cast. And to see you guys working together after so many years ago, that is really exciting.

The first scene we did in the film was actually with Stallone where I get fired and I’m really upset… It was a great moment. I can feel, there is this certain image between Stallone and I anyway, there is a chemistry, an on-screen chemistry that was there originally twenty years ago. And it is still there. So it was kind of cool and you could feel the crew was like… you know, you have to push him and they’d gasp and that sort of thing [Laughing]. It was cool. Yeah, it was very nice and it is one of my favorite scenes.

You know what I like about it is there was a real feeling of real people and it’s not superheroes and there is nobody flying though buildings. Nobody is out to save the world. You know, it’s quite down to earth. Just some guys hanging out, trying to help some people out and they all have their problems. You know, there is substance abuse, you know, other things with their families and I think that its fresh. Stallone writes those things very, very well. Even with his firsts, you know, ROCKY and F.I.S.T. and those type of movies. I think THE EXPENDABLES is one of his better scripts. It’s funny and it’s touching and it’s going to be cool. That’s what I think people are going to like about it, that its about real people.

And I think another thing that is exciting is that he is, again going back to the cast, he has collected guys like Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, you and it seems to add up to a really solid cast for this kind of film.

Well I think also there is another energy, which is a lot of these guys are the real thing. You know, Mickey Rourke has been in the ring and he could kick your ass. He’s a tough guy you know. And you know, some of the other guys too, you know there is me and Sly with stunts instead of some guy who has to rely on doubles and wires to look good. So I think there’s a reality thing going there which is old school. The way it used to be. With Charles Bronson, when I was a kid he could kick my ass any day, for real, you know.

What is your involvement with UNIVERSAL SOLDIERS: THE NEXT GENERATION? Is it a big role, or are we looking at a cameo?

Yeah, I’m doing a cameo. I sort of appear in the movie at a sort of seminal moment. And you know, John Hyams is directing this and his father, Peter Hyams is a director. His son is really good too, he wrote a nice little role, kind of a little cameo. It was fun to work with Jean-Claude Van Damme again, also another bizarre experience. It was slightly different than the first film, but still, seventeen years later, it was like, ‘Holy shit, it’s been that long!’ [Laughing].