Dolph Lundgren

Early life

Hans Lundgren entered the world in 1957 in Spånga, Stockholm County, Sweden, though some have mistakenly placed his birth in 1959. His mother, Sigrid Birgitta, taught languages, while his father, Karl Hugo Johan Lundgren, worked as an engineer and economist for the Swedish government. Lundgren spent his early years in Spånga until age 13, then moved to his grandparents’ home in Nyland, Ångermanland. He has two sisters, Katarina and Annika, and an older brother, Johan.

Lundgren has said his father was physically abusive, often calling him a “loser” during angry outbursts, which later fueled his ambition to succeed. Despite this, Lundgren maintains he loved his father and admired many things about him, noting his own stubbornness may have mirrored his father’s. This difficult relationship, he believes, drove him toward heavy contact sports like boxing and karate. As a child, Lundgren felt insecure, suffered from allergies, and called himself a “runt.”

He dreamed of becoming a rock star and took up drumming. At age seven, he tried judo and Gōjū-ryū, began Kyokushin karate at 10, and started weightlifting as a teen. After graduating high school with straight A’s, he studied chemical engineering on scholarships at Washington State University and Clemson University in the 1970s, then served a year in the Swedish Coastal Artillery at the Coastal Ranger School. He later earned a chemical engineering degree from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in the early 1980s.

Career

Lundgren made his film debut in the 1985 James Bond film A View to a Kill as Venz, a KGB assassin, after his former lover Grace Jones recommended him. Upon learning Sylvester Stallone was seeking an imposing fighter for Rocky IV, Lundgren sent videos and pictures to a contact of Stallone. He was initially turned down for being too tall but eventually beat 5,000 other hopefuls to land the role of Ivan Drago. He trained intensely in bodybuilding and boxing for five months before filming, weighing 240 lb during filming though billed at 250 lb.

His character's lines 'If he dies, he dies' and 'I must break you' are among the best known of the Rocky series. Lundgren hit Stallone so hard during a fight scene that Stallone was in intensive care for nine days with a blood pressure of 290 due to swelling of the pericardial sac. Lundgren later fought in a real boxing match against former UFC fighter Oleg Taktarov and lost via decision. He has highlighted the premiere of Rocky IV at the Mann Village Theatre in Westwood, Los Angeles, as the moment that changed his life.

He went on to play lead roles in numerous action films and continued playing villainous roles, including Sergeant Andrew Scott in three Universal Soldier films. In the 2000s, he mostly appeared in direct-to-video films and began directing and starring in his own films. He returned to prominence in 2010 with The Expendables and has since appeared in Aquaman (2018) and other films.

Training and diet

Although Lundgren has never competed as a professional bodybuilder, he has been closely associated with bodybuilding and fitness since his role as Drago. He often trains up to six days a week in one-hour morning sessions. He began lifting weights as a teenager but cites co-star Sylvester Stallone as getting him into serious bodybuilding in the 1980s. Stallone influenced his diet, ensuring he ate a higher percentage of protein and split food into five or six smaller meals a day.

In 2023, Lundgren said he took anabolic steroids on and off from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. He has professed never to have been 'super strong', noting that during Rocky IV he worked with around 300 pounds on the bench and squat. In January 2011, he announced he was working on releasing his own range of vitamins and supplements. He wrote an autobiographical fitness book, Train Like an Action Hero: Be Fit Forever, published in Sweden on 9 August 2011.

When in Los Angeles, he trains at the Equinox Gym in Westwood; previously at home in Marbella, Spain, he trained at the Qi Sport Gym in Puerto Banús. He also spars and practices karate aside from weight lifting, citing dead lifting and squats as the best exercises for muscle building. He is not a heavy drinker but is fond of tequila and cocktails, citing his chemical engineering knowledge as making really good drinks.

Personal life

Lundgren splits his time between Stockholm and Los Angeles. In addition to his native Swedish, he speaks English fluently and smaller amounts of French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. He is an avid football fan, having supported Everton when in Europe and later developing interest in international tournaments. During the 1980s, he had relationships with Grace Jones and Paula Barbieri.

While completing a master's degree in chemical engineering at the University of Sydney, Jones spotted him at a dance club and hired him as a bodyguard. In 1994, he married Anette Qviberg in Marbella; they have two daughters, Ida Sigrid Lundgren and Greta Eveline Lundgren, both born in Stockholm. The couple lived outside Hollywood to give their children a normal childhood. In early May 2009, three masked burglars broke into their Marbella home, tied up and threatened his wife, but fled upon finding a family photo.

After the incident, his elder daughter suffered from PTSD. He and Qviberg divorced in 2011. Lundgren was in a relationship with Jenny Sandersson from 2011 to 2017. He became engaged to Norwegian personal trainer Emma Krokdal in June 2020 and married her on 13 July 2023.

In May 2023, he revealed he had been battling kidney cancer since 2015. In February 2024, Lundgren and Krokdal became US citizens.