At some point in his career, Jean-Claude Van Damme entered a curious state of constantly trying to get back into the spotlight. Van Damme burst onto the film scene in 1988 with Newt Arnold’s Bloodsport and became one of the most notable action stars of the 1990s, appearing in Kickboxer, Roland Emmerich’s Universal Soldier, and John Woo’s Universal Soldier. . Hard Target” and titles such as “Timecop” and “Street Fighter”. By the late 1990s, however, Van Damme’s films seemed to have fallen out of fashion, and Muscle of Brussels entered something of a stagnant period from which it seems to emerge every day. It wasn’t until the
2008 release of JCVD, in which Van Damme played himself, that audiences saw the actor as an experienced and vulnerable actor who had honed his craft over his career.
Since then, Van Damme has made several self-aware projects in the vein of JCVD, in which he could showcase his still-ample physical prowess while consciously acknowledging his place in the pop culture firmament (highly recommended: Amazon’s 2016 series Jean-Claude Van Johnson “). It was during Van Damme’s late period of constant reinvention that Sylvester Stallone began making the Expendables films. The Expendables (2010), directed by Stallone, is hardly a film bound by its gimmick:
Creative And Crazier
For Simon West’s “The Expendables 2” (2012), the cast was expanded to include Chuck Norris and, as the film’s villain, Van Damme. It was finally being cast as a heavy that allowed Van Damme to finally feel like he can stretch as an actor. Additionally, like all action stars, Van Damme was frequently asked to play roles that only required him to be stoic and capable. In playing a villain, he was finally able to chew some scenery, something he was rarely asked to do. He explained his feelings about “Expendables” in the fitness magazine Coach in 2012:RELATED:
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“It was a welcome change. A bad guy gave me the opportunity to push the envelope more in terms of being creative and to be crazier. Such a big film allowed me to show more acting, like in ‘JCVD.’ I was trying to create a non-comical, more serious villain that could be believable. For me it was about being as real as possible. Sly liked that because he takes his work so seriously.”
Van Damme admits he wasn’t in the physical shape he would have liked when he was cast in The Expendables 2. And while it’s easy to imagine that the “out of shape” Van Damme is probably much fitter than most of us will ever be, the film still required him to be as bulky and muscular as possible to fit the hyper-muscled aesthetic. action films of the 1980s The Expendables films were meant to be emulated.
Because Van Damme was on the road so much, and because he was 50, he had fallen off of a regular fitness regimen, and Stallone insisted that he begin powering up immediately.
“When I came on the set, I am sad to say, I was not in shape. At the time I was travelling so much, which was very hard for me. But I did start to train right away because Sly basically said to me to build muscle and have arms, like, the size of trains.”
The trainer goes on to describe how Van Damme got back into shape, which was not just a way for the actor to get into fighting shape, but a way to get back into character. He had 45-minute cardio sessions and a lot of powerlifting… he did more reps with light weights, not less with giant ones; his body felt better. Van Damme also had to re-use a special form of what he calls isometric training that he used 15 years ago during his cinematic heyday:
“You can do this any place in the world with some very specific movements. It’s the best training in the world. You can do it before you brush your teeth in morning and before you go to bed at night. You raise your heartbeat with no equipment needed. I do this anywhere – even if I am speaking to someone I’ll do some training. It becomes natural.”Getting into shape also entailed eating right, working on flexibility, and learning to fight with Stallone as well. Stallone, it turns out, likes to actually make contact when he fights on camera.
Making Contact
“Sly weighed 99 kg [about 218 lbs.] for this film. He was going for it during the fight scenes too. I’m not saying he was throwing real shots, but he likes to make contact so everything looks real.”Playing a heavy, getting back into shape, and learning to fight again brought Van Damme out of a decade-long funk, and the activity led to an increased work output on other films. He picked up work on some other films that he had been working on for some time, and even had lined up an Olympic-level Muy Thai Somluk Kamsing.
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“I respect all forms of film. Now I feel that I am back. Because of ‘The Expendables 2’ I learned how to love film again.”