On November 17, 2010, Spinoff Online posted a nice little interview with Dolph Lundgren about his role in “The Expendables.” Here are a couple of quotes…
Dolph on his character: “In the original draft, the character [Gunnar] died and was not brought back, but then we started shooting and things changed after a little bit. Actually, there was a bigger scene at the end where suddenly Gunnar came back in an even bigger moment, but then we changed it to a more subtle revival the way it is now where he shows up. That was more tasteful, I thought.
Dolph on setting up his fight scene with Jet Li: “It gets a little erratic on the set because you have Stallone, you have the stunt coordinator, you have a couple of Jet Li’s fight coordinators…and everybody’s trying to get in there and have their say. Obviously, everyone is a bit overworked, and there’s a lot of time pressure. So it’s easy for a real punch to slip in there, but I’m kind of used to that. I still spar in real life, so it doesn’t bother me very much. But there were an unusual number of cooks for that fight because, like I said, all of the coordinators, but Stallone came in – he had been shooting somewhere else, and it was a hot day…one of the hottest when we were filming in New Orleans – and he came in and was like [Puts on Stallone accepts] “Hey, yeah…we’re going to shoot like this…”
You can read the full interview here.
On November 17, 2010, MovieWeb posted a great little interview with Dolph where he talked about “The Expendables” and his next projects. Here are a couple of quotes:
Dolph on how Sly has changed as a director between “Rocky IV” and “The Expendables”: On Rocky IV he was very detailed oriented. He was very intense. He didn’t leave anything to chance. He wants it right. He keeps shooting until he gets it. It was the same this time. I’d worked with other directors in-between. Like Roland Emmerich and John Woo. There is a certain intensity to Sly that these other people don’t have. There is another level. Obviously, he has matured a bit as a man. I think he took more time in talking to the actors about their performances. Maybe he was a little more patient. Basically, ninety percent of it was the same. It was physically intense. He has a “take no prisoners” type of attitude as a director.
Dolph on who he’d like to see join the Expendables sequel: I think Jean-Claude Van Damme would be fun. I’d love to see him in it as a bad guy. Because he has never really played that. I think that would be a big draw. The other guys that I really like in the genre are Wesley Snipes. Vin Diesel. There are a few guys that I really like. There are a few young guys that I really like, too. It could be interesting. There is always Chuck Norris, of course (laughs).
To read the full interview, go here.
Dolph also did a Q&A with ScreenJunkies. Here’s a taste:
Dolph on movie fights and squaring off against Jet Li in The Expendables: The experience was most guys you fight in a movie aren’t movie stars. They’re extras or doubles or stunt men. It’s very rare you fight someone like Stallone or Van Damme if you’re a name actor. That’s always a highlight. Last time I fought somebody like that I guess would have been Van Damme in Universal Soldier, where the actor can fight so you’re actually with the actor.
You can read the whole piece here.
On November 20, 2010, Dolph spoke with WorstPreviews. You know the drill…
Dolph on how he learned about The Expendables: What happened was Stallone called me out of the blue and just said (in Stallone’s voice) ‘Hey Dolph, you know. Here’s a script, you know. Ay yo, check it out.’ So I checked it out and then I checked out the character he told me to look at, Gunner Jensen, the crazy Swedish psycho who drinks too much and kills people. And I thought ‘Ok,’ I understand why he called me, I can do this.
Dolph on why there are no Hollywood tough guys anymore… “Society has changed. Look at John Wayne and Robert Mitchum, they were guys who would have bar fights and carried real guns on the set. It was a different era. People fought in the second World War. Jimmy Stewart bombed in missions over Germany and was shot at by real bullets. Can you imagine some movie star today flying over Iraq and going in there getting shot at for real? That would never happen. They were just much tougher people. That rubbed off on the cinema.”
Here’s a link to the whole piece.
