Dolph Lundgren
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Dolph Lundgren (born Hans Lundgren on November 3, 1957[1] in Stockholm, Sweden)[2] is a Swedish actor, director and karateka.
Well known for his tall stature and level of fitness, Lundgren stood around 6 ft 5 in (195 cm) and over 240 pounds (108 kg) at his peak. He belongs to a generation of film actors who epitomise the movie action hero stereotype including Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme, some of whom he has worked with in his career.
Lundgren’s breakthrough came when he starred in Rocky IV in 1985 as the imposing Russian boxer Ivan Drago. Since then, he has starred in more than 40 pictures, all of them in the action film genre.[3] He portrayed He-Man in the 1987 film Masters of the Universe, and in the early 1990s, appeared in films such as Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991), opposite Brandon Lee, Universal Soldier (1992), opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme, Joshua Tree opposite Kristian Alfonso and George Segal, and Johnny Mnemonic alongside Keanu Reeves. Since the mid 1990s Lundgren has increasingly starred in lower profile action pictures and B movies, many of them direct to video.
The Defender in 2004 marked Lundgren’s directorial debut, following up with films such such as The Mechanik (2005) Missionary Man (2007) and the upcoming Command Performance in which he also starred.
A native of Stockholm, Lundgren holds a 3rd Dan (3rd Degree Black Belt) in Kyokushin Karate. He won the European championships in 1980 and 1981 as well as a heavyweight tournament in Australia in 1982.[4] He was also captain of the Swedish Kyokushin Karate team, and was a formidable challenger at the 1979 World Open Tournament (arranged by the Kyokushin Karate Organization) when he was only a green belt.[citation needed] In addition to kyokushin karate Lundgren has also studied fencing, boxing, judo, goju-ryu, and taekwondo.
Dolph Lundgren graduated from the Royal Institute of Technology. He has a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney (1982), and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983 – but quit after two weeks to pursue acting.[5] He speaks over five languages: Swedish, English, German, French, Spanish, some Japanese, and some Italian, but is not fluent in all of them.[6] He has two sisters and a younger brother named Johan who reside in Sweden.[6]
Lundgren completed his mandatory military service in his native Sweden at the Amphibious Ranger School. He left this elite marine unit (Kustjägarna) with the rank of conscript corporal.
