Dolph talks up Creed II plot
Being cast as the villainous Soviet boxer Ivan Drago in Rocky IV launched Dolph Lundgren’s acting career. But if that hadn’t worked out, he might have pursued a more intellectual career path.
The 61-year-old holds a master’s degree in chemical engineering and was on a Fulbright scholarship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when Stallone cast him as Drago for the 1985 Rocky sequel.
Lundgren doesn’t regret trading academia for those red boxing trunks with the gold stripes, though he wishes his character had had a few more coherent lines.
“It felt really surreal, and, at the same time, it felt like a big moment. That character started my whole career and it’s been a great thing for me,” Lundgren said. “But it’s also kind of been a negative in one way because he was such a monosyllabic guy. He was a robot.”
This month, Lundgren reprises the role of Drago in Creed II, as much a sequel to Rocky IV as it is to the previous Creed film. Lundgren remains grateful to Stallone, not only for casting him in the first place, but for giving him a more substantial role.
“I got a chance to play a guy who was a real person and who has real problems, especially a father-son relationship. When I see father-son relationships in movies, it always gets me emotional. And I had a chance to be part of that,” Lundgren said.
In Rocky IV, Drago kills Apollo Creed in the ring, only to later lose to Rocky Balboa. But, it turns out, he lost much more than a boxing match. In Creed II, we learn he is living in squalor after the embarrassing defeat. He raises his son Viktor, played by Florian Munteanu, to be a boxer and wants revenge on Rocky by getting his son to fight the son of the man he killed.
Munteanu said he felt a bond with Lundgren. “It’s an honour to play his son,” he said. “He wanted to create a father-son relationship right from the beginning.”
The trajectory that led Lundgren to the big screen was a unique one. He was an engineering student in Melbourne when he met model and singer Grace Jones. While dating, she took him to New York and introduced to him people like Andy Warhol and Michael Jackson. It didn’t hurt that he was a karate champion when Stallone discovered him.
Since then, he’s had a busy action-movie career, starring in The Expendables trilogy, Masters of the Universe and the upcoming Aquaman. Still, he admits to soul searching when it comes to his career path.
“Why did I quit MIT? Why didn’t I continue with engineering? Why did I become an actor?” he would often ask himself. But now he’s at peace with his decision to pursue acting: “Whether I’m a good guy or a bad guy, it makes [the audience] feel something, and it brightens up their lives. That’s kind of what my part on this Earth has been, I guess.”
This time around, there weren’t a lot of action scenes for Lundgren. He was fine with that, but he got in shape to play Drago, anyway, describing him as “one of those guys who’s always in shape”.
“No matter how much vodka he drinks, he’s going to go to the gym,” Lundgren said.
Whether I play a good guy or a bad guy, it makes the audience feel something, and it brightens up their lives