Dolph Lundgren wasn’t as thrilled as you might think when he heard that his most famous character, Rocky IV ‘s Ivan Drago, was being pulled out of mothballs for the Creed sequel.
“I was at the premiere of Creed with [Sylvester] Stallone and the subject never came up and to be honest I never thought about playing the character again. Then a few months later, I get this text from Sly and it says [cuts into Stallone’s musical imitation] “How about we play that guy again?” said Lundgren, who has been making films with Stallone since his breakthrough. in Rocky IV . “And I thought, ‘Who?’
Who, of course, is Drago, the Soviet giant who kills fighter Apollo Creed in the ring and fights Rocky Balboa in a rematch for the title.
In Creed II , Apollo’s son Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) became the champion and Drago trained his own son Victor (boxer Florian Munteanu) to fight for the title.
“My honest reaction was: I’m not sure,” Lundgren said. “I was stunned. Am I going to have to wear those red trunks again? Cut your hair and all that? Rocky IV helped him become a star, but it also marked him as a certain type of actor who was offered a limited set of roles.
“Rocky IV helped my career a lot, but also hurt me a little bit because I played someone who was a robot, showed little emotion and killed off a beloved character.
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So I hear about Creed 2 and I think I’m going to be forced to play a bad guy and another cartoon character,” he said. He became a star before he had a chance to become an actor.
“I only studied acting for a year before Rocky IV , and then, boom, I was famous. And I never had a chance to figure out what I want to do. Do I want to play guys who kill people for the rest of their lives?” said Lundgren, who played the Punisher as well as the Universal Soldier in the film series.
“Drago was five percent of my personality. A silent killer. I can do this, but I can do other things too. So it was a mixed blessing, but mostly a blessing,” he said.
Lundgren agreed to return to Creed II when he realized the character he was playing was more complex than the guy he played in Rocky IV .
“I’m reading the script and one of the first scenes is Ivan and his son, and it’s a really deep scene, a lot of emotion,” he said. “And I met director Steven [Caple Jr.] and he explained to me that I want this film to be about fathers and sons. Being Shakespearean and mythical, and Ivan is an integral part of that. And I realized that this guy is a real director, this is a real film, and yes, I want to be a part of it.
Lundgren likes how Caple invites viewers to sympathize with Ivan and Viktor, who in the opening scenes train in a context reminiscent of Rocky’s underdog environment in the original film.
“In way, it’s exactly how Rocky started. In a apartment, no money, no job, in the cold, just a guy with this one hope, and boxing as the means of achieving it.”
“I’m not a guy who runs on regret,” said Lundgren, who’s usually too busy — he’s made 70 movies — to complain much about the direction his career has taken.
“Stallone and I ended up making like half a dozen movies together. It’s weird. One day you wake up and you’re like, how did that happen?”