Dolph Lundgren Once Believed ‘Selling out’ Hurt His Career
Actor Dolph Lundgren has made a career starring in some of Hollywood’s most memorable action films. But the Rocky IV star once found himself agreeing to the kind of movies that he didn’t want to do. To Lundgren, this led to selling out, which he believed hurt his career in the long run.
Dolph Lundgren once shared why being cast in ‘Rocky IV’ was both a gift and a curse
Lundgren got his start featuring in Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky IV. From there, many fans remember Lundgren as the towering and stoic Soviet Union fighter Ivan Drago that beat Apollo Creed to death. But right from the start, Lundgren wanted to add some depth to his character. This was to keep audiences from completely hating him as he advanced further in his career.
“I remember I was trying to play some emotionality there, even though I came across as this kind of cold-hearted killer. I think there is something in the character that people felt a little sorry for him; like he was the monster and Dr. Frankenstein was the bad guy, and that is the Soviet system.” Lundgren once told Screen Crush.
Lundgren believed that his strategy might have worked and helped get him his next leading man role.
“So the reason I could move on and play leads in movies afterward — in my next film I played He-Man, who was like a good guy — I think it was something in the backstory, even though the guy was a killer and people mostly hated him for killing Apollo. But there is another little quality there that kinda got me off the hook a little bit,” he said.
Dolph Lundgren felt selling out really hurt his career
Lundgren once shared that when his career first started taking off, he began to accept roles more for the paycheck than the quality. But he also felt that doing films this way might have come with a few consequences.
“On some movies I kind of sold out, got paid a lot and worked for two weeks without really caring about the project,” he once said according to Contact Music. “If the movie’s bad and you’re good, it doesn’t hurt you. But if you’re bad, it hurts you. If you’re going to sell out, you might as well do your homework. That’s important.”
But despite his choices in the past, the Aquaman star came up with a theory as to why he was able to maintain success.
“I suppose I’m successful even when I do bad movies because I keep working I’ve learned that hard work pays off,” he added. “There’s no shortcut, unfortunately. I’ve always been a hard worker. I’m not always 100 percent focused, but I’m always working.”
Dolph Lundgren changed what Sylvester Stallone wanted Ivan Drago to be
Before seeing Lundgren, Stallone already had a vision in mind for his Rocky opponent Ivan Drago. Stallone eventually saw Ivan as a monster. But seeing Lundgren inspired Stallone to redesign Ivan from the ground up.
“The first time I met Dolph Lundgren, he changed the whole concept. I was seeing the Russian Drago as this Man-Beast, almost animal-like, unbeatable,” Stallone once told The Hollywood Reporter. “Then this supernatural uber-Viking walked in. I said, ‘This is what people may look like in 500 hundred years. Genetically perfect, engineered to be the athlete of the future.’”
