Dolph Lundgren on Living with Stallone, Wild Times with Grace Jones & Why He Is Grateful for Cancer

Adam Carolla Show

Dolph Lundgren discusses his tumultuous upbringing, career in Hollywood, and personal growth through adversity, reflecting on his journey fr

Key takeaways

• Abuse in childhood often drives individuals toward physical disciplines like martial arts or combat sports as a form of escape and empowerment.
• Many successful figures, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, share similar origins—abusive parents, small-town roots, and early determination to transcend their circumstances.

Main topics

• Childhood trauma and abuse
• Path to fame in Hollywood

Notable quotes

"We don't pick our parents. We don't really choose our fate."

"I just wanted to get the hell out of Sweden."

Conclusion

Dolph Lundgren's story is one of resilience forged through hardship, w

Transcript preview

Speaker 7 (0:00) In this episode, Dolph Lundgren. That's right. I must break you. He's back. Also, Dawson's got the news, and we'll do all that right after this. Speaker 3 (0:12) Hello and welcome to PlutoFo. If you know the name of the movie you'd like to see, just stream it for free on Pluto TV, where all your blockbuster favorites are landing all summer long. Catch Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Speaker 4 (0:25) Fantastic. Speaker 3 (0:26) The Matrix Trilogy. Welcome to the real world. Mean Girls. Speaker 4 (0:30) Shut up. Speaker 3 (0:30) Titanic. I'm the king of the world. And so much more. For showtimes, press nothing. They're free 24-7. That is Speaker 2 (0:38) so fetch. Speaker 3 (0:39) On Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never. Speaker 6 (0:48) From Corolla Munn Studios in Glendale, California, this is The Adam Corolla Show. Adam's guest today, Dolph Lundgren. Plus the news with me, Mike Dawson, and now, Adam Speaker 7 (0:59) Corolla. Yeah, get it on. Got to get on. Got to get on. Man, they get it on. Dolph Lundgren back in studio. He's got a book, Fights Worth Fighting, Finding Strength in Struggle, and that's coming out real soon, September 22nd. But pre-order. You always pre-order. And it'll arrive when the book comes out. That's what I found from writing books. And also the documentary, Dolph Unbreakable, which should be out somewhere around early October. And it's wherever you find finer documentaries. Speaker 4 (1:34) Everywhere. I Speaker 7 (1:35) love a documentary. Dolph's story is great, interesting, can be heartbreaking, lots of highs and lows. But a pretty... Pretty well-lived life, I Speaker 2 (1:47) would say. Would you trade it? No. Nice to be here, Adam. No, I wouldn't, actually. You know, when you're in the midst of it, sometimes you feel that way. But, no, I think we were given our various lives for a reason. And we have to fulfill that reason, you know, purpose. Speaker 7 (2:04) I know you had a pretty tough upbringing. Also, I think you... are a person or I almost want to say poster child, but when we see people on TV or in movies at the height of their powers looking amazing, you just we look at these people and they go, we think not a care in the world, you know, just touched by the hand of God. You know, everywhere you drive, the lights just turn green and you just blow right through. But they don't think about the kind of childhood that you had growing Speaker 2 (2:37) up. Right. Speaker 2 (2:39) No, you're right. I'm the same. It's hard to see behind the mask of a star. But obviously, the really, really famous people like Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson or Marilyn Monroe, I mean, obviously, it can also be quite destructive. I think that in my case, it's been a good ride. You know, I've been very lucky. I started out in little Sweden. My dad was very abusive towards me and my mom. So I had that kind of trauma, which a lot of guys who end up in contact sports have. Football, boxing, Navy SEALs, you know, all of those dudes, military, police force. I had the same thing, and it drove me to become a fighter and later an actor. Speaker 7 (3:30) You know, it's a... It's kind of interesting as I was looking at your story, and we talked about it, and it's in the book, but, you know, when I was watching the Schwarzenegger documentary, I was kind of like, I think there's a lot of parallels here. Arnold was, you know, he's older, did it earlier, but grew up in a small place. There was no celebrity, had an abusive dad, some alcoholism there. used his physicalness to get out as a way out, you know, came here, had an accent. Probably no one thought of him as being an actor. He was all it was. But he was the muscles guy. I mean, in a way, there's a lot of parallels there, isn't there? Speaker 2 (4:15) Yeah, there are. Yeah. From a small country, Austria and Sweden are both small. He had a tough dad. I believe he was a police officer. My dad was an officer. But I think. One difference was that I think Arnold was very determined early to, he already knew he wanted to be a bodybuilding champion. He wanted to be a movie star. He had that already in the works. And I didn't. I just wanted to get the hell out of Sweden. And I was pretty smart in school. I was good at science and engineering. So I got scholarships that way. And my martial arts, my physicality was something I did kind of like a hobby. And then, of course, that became my job after I moved to America and people wanted to kind of monetize that skill. I didn't. Speaker 7 (5:08) Yeah, I'm very envious of people who know what they want to do early. And everyone should be envious of those people. I'll tell you how. You should know. Because, like, I'll run into comedians, and they'll go, oh, man, when I was 14, my mom was driving me to the club, and she'd wait out in the car. I knew what I wanted. I wanted to do stand-up in the seventh grade, and I've been doing it ever since. And I go, I'm so envious, because I wandered around for a long time. You know, just taking crappy jobs, sort of had hopes or dreams, but not really a plan. And these people, it doesn't always... It's not a guarantee it's going to work out. But the worst thing you can do is talk to someone. Have you ever talked to a guy and he's like in his 30s or 40s and you go, what do you want to do? What do you like? And they go, I don't know. I like video games. I'm like, no, what's the passion? And they go, I don't really have a passion. And I always feel the most sorry for those people. Well, Speaker 5 (6:11) I think, you Speaker 2 (6:13) know, we don't pick our parents. We don't really choose our fate. But I was a bit like you then. I think something you would call a searcher, somebody who's trying to find where they fit in life, which is a different path than, let's say, Schwarzenegger probably knew already. And I'm envious as well of people like that, Tiger Woods. When did he start playing golf when he was three, two and a half? He was Speaker 7 (6:40) on like Speaker 2 (6:41) the Tonight Show Speaker 7 (6:41) playing golf at five. Speaker 2 (6:43) So then, you know, you become very good at it. And yeah. But you also had Speaker 7 (6:51) a physicality and you had a striking physicality. And that's a different element. Like sometimes. When a woman is very beautiful, she'll just get pushed into certain things, you know, and it may not be stuff she necessarily even wants to do. But when enough people come on, you got to do this, you know, you got to get in the bathing suit, you know, they end up doing it a lot of the time because they're being encouraged to do it. Now, most guys, most guys. the physicality parts kind of neither here nor there. Are they funny? Are they a good actor? Are they a good engineer? You know, whatever it is. You had a tall, blonde, you know, a very defined look, and so you probably were having people trying to push you in a direction that may not have been a direction you wanted to go. Speaker 2 (7:45) You're right, yes. People, you know, I had a striking look, which I wasn't aware of, and... I ended up doing some modeling in Australia and New York and ended up, you know, I liked acting because acting was a way for me to escape and express something I had, like some kind of pain I had from my childhood. But, yeah, people are finally somebody said, hey, man, you know, you're a karate champion. You're a big guy. You should try to be in the movies, you know. And I. Yeah, I had like a calling to do something different. I didn't want to be a chemical engineer for the rest of my life like my dad or my brother. I wanted to go on an adventure, and movies felt like an adventure, you know. Does your brother look like you? Not quite. A little bit. He's very tall, and he was quite good-looking when he was younger. My dad was very good-looking. You look like your dad. Yeah, quite a bit. He had dark hair, though. Yeah, but when you Speaker 7 (8:43) look at the picture in the book of you at age three or four or something, and him, his face at age 34 looks like Dolph's face. Speaker 2 (8:54) Yeah, a little bit. You're right. Yeah, he did. He was a handsome guy. I mean, I remember some of the girls in school used to kind of swarm when he showed up because he always wore a suit. He was a good-looking guy, probably. Like you said, in his 30s then. They were like 15 or so, I guess. That Speaker 7 (9:13) guy, the guy wore the suit and the guy was the chemical engineer. At that degree of education in a place in Sweden, it doesn't seem like the abusive dad type. You know, you think, oh, this guy's a truck driver and he lives, you know, in the barrio and he dropped out of the ninth grade. Yeah, he drinks a few beers and he takes it out. You don't think Swedish chemical engineer with striking matinee idol good looks. Like that doesn't feel like the abusive dad archetype. Speaker 2 (9:46) You're right. That's why there was nowhere to go for help, because nobody in school would have believed me. And, you know, this is the 60s, so there's no hotline you can call on your cell phone. I mean, no, I think he had a very tough upbringing. He was from the northern part of Sweden. He grew up during the Depression when people starved to death, literally. I'm sure he got beaten a lot when he was a kid. His dad was a hard drinker and a really tough guy. So he kind of came full circle. But, you know, I loved a lot of things he did, and I looked up to him, and I still, I mean, I forgave him, and he had his own problems. Like somebody said, we're victims of victims. You know, you can't blame them either, you know? Speaker 7 (10:36) Yeah, although I think we discussed this before. Oh, yeah, I brought back some memories when you said that. Nothing. Well, what I'm saying is you would never treat your kids that way. And I don't always buy the it's all he knew or he grew up that way. I sort of disagree with that. Most of the people, I'll tell you, a lot of people. are non-smokers or non-drinkers because their dad drank and smoked and they hated it and they saw what it did to him and they remember when he was drunk and he'd get in a fight with mom. So they go, I've never drank. Meaning you can do a version of life where you go, I'm not doing what that guy did. And you did it. I'm very different than my family was, you know, with me, with my kids. But we always do that. His dad beat on him, so that's kind of all he knew. I think in a weird way we're being too generous. I think they should know, and they have a choice, and they can do that. Speaker 2 (11:44) Yeah. No, that's true. Everybody has a choice, and he wasn't strong enough to break the cycle of violence. He wasn't strong enough to do that, and he didn't have it in him. I mean, I had to go through a lot of... A lot of therapy. Well, I didn't have the violence against other people in me. I kind of got to express it in martial arts, but I've never been violent towards women or anything like that, kids. But maybe if I didn't have a certain mindset, maybe it could have triggered it somehow. But I don't think he would never admit it, that he had a problem, you know. Speaker 7 (12:30) And so you come to the States when you're 19, 18, 19? Yeah, 18. And you're going to MIT. And you're now in Massachusetts and not too far from New York, though. So you must find your way to New York pretty quickly, right? Speaker 2 (12:47) Yeah, actually, I came. I met this singer in Australia, Grace Jones, who was on a tour. She lived in New York. So I had. some time off, and I went to New York. I had six months off before starting MIT. I went to New York, and I ended up, you know, doing some modeling. I went to 54 with her. I ran into Andy Warhol and Michael Jackson, a bunch of people, and my life was kind of thrown into a spin. Studio 54 with Grace Speaker 7 (13:14) Jones. Yeah. That's in 19-what year? Speaker 2 (13:19) 82. Speaker 7 (13:20) That's incredible. Because, you know, A, Grace Jones is very recognizable because she was so tall and striking. Yes. And then you were tall and striking. And, you know, together, that's a combination there visually. I mean, what I'm saying is. Speaker 7 (13:39) Tom Cruise is, you know, five foot eight or nine or whatever. And he likes to ride motorcycles. He can put a full face motorcycle helmet on and a leather jacket on and get a Ducati and go wherever he wants. And no one's going to bother him. But Kareem Abdul-Jabbar can't do that. And neither can Shaq. You know, they get they can't hide anywhere. They'll get they get stopped everywhere. Right. So you and Grace Jones, you can't. no one's going to miss you. I don't know if she's six foot tall or I don't know. She's tall. She's tall. Speaker 2 (14:15) And Speaker 7 (14:15) she's in a weird way, a carbon negative of you. She's like sort of the black version of you. She's very striking, very angular. And so if you two are going in to Studio 54, even though Andy Warhol is going to be there, you know. Liza Minnelli's going to be there. You guys are the ones that people are going to come up to. I think Grace Jones, especially, because she was a celebrity, not a mega celebrity, but in that world, she was cooler than Michael Jackson, I think. What do Speaker 2 (14:52) you think? I agree with you, yes. She grew up in Jamaica, and then she ended up in Paris modeling, and so she... got the style from Yves Saint Laurent and these guys she worked with, all the good photographers, Helmut Newton, and so she had an incredible style. So I think the combination of the fact that she was African-American, spoke fluent French, wearing fashion gear from Yves Saint Laurent, and then, of course, with me behind her, it was quite an entourage. It would stop people. It was an interesting time. Speaker 7 (15:31) So you'd go to Studio 54 and you'd see Andy Warhol and you'd see Michael Jackson and, I don't know, Brooke Shields. I don't know who all. You'd see everyone, right? Speaker 2 (15:43) Yeah, Bianca Jagger. Yeah, they were all there, like those guys back in those days. A lot of fashion. People like Gianni Versace, and he was new. He just moved over from Italy. He made me this leather suit that I would wear on my motorcycle, which later Grace burnt because we had a fight, and she threw it in the fireplace. Too bad. It wouldn't Speaker 7 (16:10) have Speaker 2 (16:10) been worth a lot today. I would have liked to Speaker 7 (16:12) see it. She burned your Versace custom leather suit in a fireplace. You got it. Oh, man, I Speaker 2 (16:22) love it. It's like a Joan Crawford movie. Speaker 7 (16:26) There was a story, and you've got to look it up, Dawson. I think it was a wide receiver. For Atlanta, maybe it was Andre Rison, and he was dating Left Eye Lopez from, I don't know, Salt and Pepper, whatever. TLC. TLC. And she went to go burn his stuff in the bathtub. Oh, okay. Now, I don't know if Grace burned your shit in the fireplace or the bathtub or the porch. Speaker 2 (16:59) It was in the fireplace, I think. But I was actually at Stallone's house at the time getting ready for Rocky IV, and I just got the call from the maid. Sir, do you have to come home? Well, she was going to go burn. Speaker 7 (17:15) Was it Andre Rison was going to burn it? Yes, it was. In the bathtub. Oh, Speaker 2 (17:19) yeah. Speaker 7 (17:20) Except for the bathtub was made out of fiberglass and the house burnt down. Okay. So you got off easy. I Speaker 2 (17:25) did. Unraveled, Speaker 7 (17:26) threw the match, burned Speaker 6 (17:27) the Speaker 7 (17:27) whole thing down. Yeah. Okay. Speaker 2 (17:29) That's good Speaker 7 (17:30) to know. Oh, listen, you're not on the pantheon of celebrities that have their shit burned by their woman. You're way down. You could have lost your whole house in Atlanta. So you got off easy. All right, man. Thank you. I want you to feel better about yourself. So she built, she took the Versace suit. Why did she do that? Speaker 2 (17:54) Well, you know, she came out to New York, from New York, and I was here, L.A., training for Rocky IV, and I was 27, and I had to be on a very strict schedule. Grace likes to go out late, come home at 3 in the morning with Speaker 5 (18:10) her Speaker 2 (18:10) girlfriends. And, you know, sometimes one thing will lead to another. You know, and I'd be losing some sleep. And then I'd have to work out with Sly. And after a few months of that, he'd be like, hey. What the fuck's wrong with you? You don't look so good. So I had to tell him. And I ended up moving to his house to get a little peace and quiet. And then she got pissed off at that. Speaker 7 (18:36) So he was training like you guys were doing like what he did with John Travolta later on. We were training Speaker 2 (18:43) together twice a day for five months, weights and boxing. What would Speaker 7 (18:49) a typical training day with Stallone be like when you're living Speaker 2 (18:55) with him? Well, it would be breakfast around 6 or so and then go to the gym for an hour of weights in the morning and then get a break for lunch, some tuna salad or whatever, no carbs, and then boxing two hours in the afternoon at the MGM. They built a gym at the MGM, a ring. where we shot a lot of it. Oh, sorry, we rehearsed a lot of the fights, some of the, all the choreography. Sure. Both for my fight with Sly and also I fought Carl Weathers. Sure. So Speaker 7 (19:30) there was two fights for me. Carl Weathers was a natural athlete. Speaker 2 (19:34) Yeah, very, very athletic guy, good-looking guy. You could Speaker 7 (19:37) tell, it wasn't his build, it was the way he moved. He moved in a way that I was like, oh, that guy's athletic. Speaker 2 (19:46) He had that Muhammad Ali kind of, you Speaker 7 (19:49) know, Speaker 2 (19:50) those moves, that natural thing. He Speaker 7 (19:52) was light on his feet, and he had rhythm. Speaker 2 (19:55) And Speaker 7 (19:55) when you see guys box in movies, they can simulate all the punching and everything, but they can't really capture the rhythm part, because that's a little more innate. That's a little more, you either got it or you, you know, there's a... Only so many Muhammad Ali's and Sugar Ray Leonard's and Speaker 6 (20:15) guys Speaker 7 (20:16) like that. And so when you see the guys move like he moved, you go, oh, that guy's an athletic guy. Like you could tell he really looked light on his feet. He was a good boxer. Speaker 2 (20:28) Yeah, and Sly was very clever because he, you know, he cast him in the first picture. He was auditioning a lot of people, he told me. I remember he showed me the tape even when they were doing some sparring in the beginning. And you're right, it's very difficult when you're actually fighting for real and somebody's trying to hurt you. It's very difficult to move like that and to have the kind of dexterity and the confidence to use those moves he did. Because with my character, for instance, Ivan Drago, he was a Soviet fighter. And they have that classic Soviet style. It's very kind of a long stance, very classic with a long jab and Speaker 7 (21:08) totally Speaker 2 (21:09) different. But it kind of reminds you of a karate stance. So I had like a certain advantage because I'd done karate. So I had that kind of those movements also in my body. I didn't have to practice much about that, you know. Speaker 7 (21:26) What was the story where you injured Stallone when Speaker 2 (21:30) you were sparring? Oh. Filming. Filming. Yeah, we were filming in Vancouver, and he was, you know, he was the director and my sparring partner, 10 years older than me, and he was like, you know, certain things we would kind of improvise certain, you know, parts of the fights where he, a lot of times he'd be in the corner and. My character is hitting him, and he would like, okay, just go ahead and hit me. Hit me harder. And I would just do what he told me. Speaker 3 (21:59) And Speaker 2 (21:59) he did the same to me. And we have some head shots because in those days it was on film. Everything had to be on camera. You couldn't add anything afterwards. So the blood has to fly out of your mouth. The head has to go back in slow motion. So we did all of that. You know, everything seemed fine. And then I came back to L.A. and the producer calls me and says, hey, Dolph, you know, you got two weeks off. And I'm like, oh, great. You know, what's going on? He's like, he's in the hospital. So then I heard that he had some kind of heart, swollen heart muscle or something because he had got hit. The ribs pushed up against his heart and they had to fly him low altitude from Vancouver to L.A. So he didn't like. His heart didn't expand or something like that. So it was pretty serious, I guess. But there are no hard feelings. You know, he'll tell the story, too. I think he doesn't mind it, you know. Well, Speaker 7 (22:57) I mean, he throws himself into his work. And, I mean, his ethic, work ethic, and just his intensity is really why. Speaker 7 (23:10) He is who he is, I think. I mean, you know, I mean, whether you're talking about Stallone or whether you're talking about Schwarzenegger, I mean, you removed the work ethic from those two guys, and we don't know their names, right? Speaker 2 (23:25) You're right. No, you're right. They're role models of mine because they do have the work ethic and they do have the perseverance. And Stallone's case is like he's a really great artist and a great writer. So people forget that, that he created those characters from nothing. And he found all the co-stars, found Mr. T, found Carl, found that Swedish guy who played Ivan Drago. And he's a pretty clever guy. Speaker 7 (23:56) Home serve. Owning a home is amazing until it's not. One minute. You're sipping coffee. The next, you're ankle deep in water from a burst pipe. Repairs, well, they don't care about timing. And they definitely don't care about your budget. And that's where HomeServe comes in. HomeServe is like a subscription for your home. For as little as $4.99 a month, they've got your back. So next time repairs hit, instead of panicking, you could already be on the phone with HomeServe's 24-7 hotline scheduling a repair. It's super simple. 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They'll do it for free, and they can do it in or out of your car. And if you need it replaced, they'll find the right battery that fits your car. So I know a lot about cars, but there's something I don't know. I always go to O'Reilly, and they help me. And I go into the store. They're professional parts people. They're at O'Reilly, and you can go by there in person, or you can do your shopping online at O'Reilly as well. But I like going in the store. I like the way it smells. I like to talk to the people. It's O'Reilly Auto Parts, right, Dawson? Stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts Speaker 6 (26:05) today, or visit us at OReillyAuto.com. That's OReillyAuto.com. Speaker 7 (26:12) How was the accent? I mean, the Swedish accent's not the Russian accent, but it's another language. I mean, you have a little advantage. You're somewhere in Europe, and you have some other language skill. Does that make it easier to Speaker 2 (26:27) get into the Russian? Possibly, yeah. I had this Russian coach. When I got the part, first I had to audition, and then I didn't have a coach. I had to figure it out myself. But I think the Swedish accent was close enough. And then this Russian guy, you know, it's the Russian. It's kind of a heavy set, you know, very kind of, it's Slavic. Swedish is a Germanic language like German and English. But Slavic is different. It's like shorter and kind of slower and more, it's a hard, heavier language. Yeah, I practiced with him, and he was very clever. He also knew exactly how Soviet athletes were taken from