I’d heard about Legendary from my many interviews with Scott Adkins. Back when it was called Tomb of the Dragon, Adkins said there was no action in it. He means there aren’t elaborate Undisputed style fights, but it’s still an adventure through the landscape of China hunting fantastical creatures. Adkins plays a cryptozoologist trying to find the creatures before his former colleague Harker (Dolph Lundgren) does. I got to speak with both action hero actors, but first Dolph Lundgren. Lundgren is having a big summer with Legendary, Expendables 3 and two movies with Tony Jaa still to come.
Legendary is now available on DVD.
Related: The Expendables 3 – New Motion Poster
CraveOnline: Scott Adkins described Legendary as not an action movie, something he did while he was injured because there weren’t the sort of fights he’s used to doing. Do you see Legendary that way? Is this not an action movie?
Dolph Lundgren: Well, it’s a bit of an action movie. I guess it has more of a horror element in there with this creature. I think it was partially developed for the Chinese market. The Chinese market’s a little different than the Western market because their tastes are slightly different. I think that’s why it feels like it’s a bit in between action and horror.
It’s certainly a big epic adventure.
Yeah.
When they offer you a role like Harker who’s the villain, do you have a sense of “I got this. I know how to do this?”
Sometimes you do, yeah. Well, you don’t really know you got it but you get a sense of the character and you kind of know you can have fun with a character like that. Why I liked Harker was because he’s kind of full of himself, likes to talk a lot and kind of has this superiority complex. It’s a little different than other people I’ve played, other characters I’ve played so I thought yeah, it could be fun.
A lot of actors get typecast, and when your breakout roles were villains, how did you avoid that? You’ve played heroes at the same time.
Yeah, I guess I’m also typecast one way because I’m doing mostly action stuff but most people are sort of typecast. De Niro is De Niro. He plays a priest but he’s still an Italian kind of tough priest. Anyway, I think it’s show business and people want to make money. It’s hard to play everything. It’s tough to be able to play exactly everything but I think playing villains and playing heroes, yeah, I’ve been able to do that which is kind of nice in one way, because some people like you as a villain and those roles are powerful. Other people like you when you play the good guy. Then you get some stuff in between like in The Expendables where the character I play is kind of an antihero. It’s all fun. It should all be enjoyable, and I think by not always playing the good guy or always the bad guy, it’s a little more fun.
Gunner had redemption in The Expendables, and Universal Soldier has gone on long enough that Andrew Scott fully came around!
[Laughs.] Yeah, I know, I know. That’s the only franchise that I’ve done where it’s been going on over the years. Expendables feels almost like one movie because it’s only two years apart, so by the time you release one picture, then they start working on the next. It’s almost like the Bond movies. Universal Soldier, that’s the one where it started more than 20 years ago. That’s why that character feels weird when I do it because they’re so long it brings back memories from the first movie too.
Was Harker the role you were offered in Legendary or could you have played either part?
Well, I could’ve played either part but they offered me Harker. I did hear something from Adkins, he had said that apparently he was supposed to play Harker. I don’t know what the deal was but I didn’t hear about that. I liked Harker. I can’t remember all the details. Maybe I did look at both parts but I thought Harker was more interesting because he had more colors and there was more to play. There was more to sink your teeth into to make him memorable.
I remember you said it was around The Expendables 1 that you started picking your scripts a lot more carefully. Was that the turning point?
Yeah, what happened was, because I moved to Europe in 2000, I moved to Spain to raise my daughters and my ex-wife didn’t like L.A. much, didn’t want to be here much, didn’t like Hollywood. So I got away from that. Good for the kids, I think, but wasn’t so good for my career and I wasn’t really in touch with everything. Right after I did Expendables 1, I wanted to do different roles and try to get stuff that even if the movies weren’t big, just do something interesting that felt like a challenge as an actor, not the same thing over and over again. Also I started producing and directing, so it feels like it’s been revitalized in the last years.
How did Legendary fit into that new mission for your career?
One was that the character was different, because he talks a lot and has a lot of dialogue basically. A lot of my characters don’t. That’s on a simple level, and I liked the fact that it was shot in China and that it had some Chinese production elements because I think the Asian market’s interesting. Funny enough, I’ve been doing another picture, two movies in Asia after that. I think to break into the Chinese market is not a bad thing for getting things financed that I’m working on. That was another thought I had.
Were those the two Thai movies with Tony Jaa?
Yeah, one was a small film which was a Thai language picture and the other was one I produced and we’re still working on in post, Skin Trade, which also had some other Asian elements, some Asian actors. We hope it’s going to do well in Asia, in China, Thailand and Korea, so that was another one.
Did you speak any Thai?
[Laughs.] Well, I say the words but I’m not there to socialize really. I’m there to find somebody and hurt them.
Thailand and Indonesia are exploding cinematically. Have you looked at any of the Indonesian market with the Raid films?
Yeah, I’ve seen those films. I saw the first one, the second one. It’s interesting. There’s always somebody new that comes along and brings new ideas to cinema which is interesting. Even though it was a Welsh director, the martial arts they used were quite interesting. The talent of those guys is amazing so Thailand is next probably. Tony is in the new Fast and Furious and a Chinese movie as well they’re doing now. He’s starring in that so I think people are going to discover him as well.
What’s new for Gunner in Expendables 3?
Well, let’s see. Some cool new clothes and a couple of new guns.
Do the Expendables have new uniforms?
No, there’s some of the same old black stuff but there’s a Somalian section of the picture where we all look the pirates, which suits Gunner. I think basically Gunner has calmed down a little bit in this one. He’s not quite as crazy as he was before. He’s more of an operator with the rest of them. He kind of leaves a space on stage for these other new guys, like Gibson, Banderas and Snipes. I think Gunner has a couple of “Gunner” moments when he thinks he’s really smart but he really isn’t.
Well, in Expendables 2 they used your chemical engineering background. Are there any more nods to your real background in Expendables 3?
There’s a slight nod in that there’s a new group of young Expendables and one of them is a tech guy who’s very good with computers. Of course Gunner figures he knows more than this kid about most of the equipment, but he has this huge problem with it later in the picture and the kid has to help him out. It’s played for comedy.
Is that Kellan Lutz’s character?
No, that’s Glen Powell.
Do you have any good scenes with Ronda Roussey?
Yeah, I enjoyed her. She’s fun and I was actually at her fight last weekend in Vegas which was 16 seconds. It was pretty fast. Yeah, I enjoyed working with her as well. The cast is so big now, there’s 15 main actors. It used to be five. I kind of leave it to those guys. I’m in there doing my think but they need some time too.
Since you’ve gone back so far with Stallone, I wonder when he cast you in Rocky IV, was the height disparity important to him because that now iconic shot is you towering over him?
I think so, even though I was turned down for being too tall in the first cattle call in New York. They had a cutoff height somewhere. I suppose they didn’t want the guy to be too tall perhaps to tower over him too much, but then when he met me I think he reconsidered and figured that this is actually good if the guy is tall. I stood on a box for some of it because Weathers is pretty tall guy so I think he wanted me to look much bigger than Weathers as well. I was bigger but not that much bigger, but in the film I looked a lot bigger. That’s Sly’s clever way of stacking the odds against himself.
You practice some martial arts yourself. Did you learn any Muay Thai for the Thai movies you did?
I was a black belt in Japanese Karate. I was European Open heavyweight champion a few years, so I was a pretty high level fighter when I was younger. Muay Thai I did a little bit. Actually, the style of Karate I do, the guy who started it was Korean actually and moved to Japan. So there’s a Korean Tae Kwon Do element and a slight Muay Thai element as well. So it’s kind of the precursor of MMA. Kyokushin Karate it’s called. We used to do kicks to the legs, punches, kicks, knees, elbows, throws. Things were in there, not quite as sophisticated as MMA but it was in the same direction about 30 years ago. I did a lot of that and I still do almost every day just for myself.
I was glad I Come in Peace came out on Blu-ray and it was great to see you and Brian Benben do interviews. It seemed like you all still thought very highly of that film.
You know, I do. There was just something about that was an interesting story and it had a lot of interesting elements put together. It had the sci-fi and the action, it had romance, it had friendship, comedy. It had interesting stuff in there that I thought was quite well executed by the director as well. I think that’d be a good remake actually.
A remake? Would you want to be in it or redo it with someone else?
Good question, I don’t know. I have to think about it but why not? Why not fight an alien? I can do that.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
