I started using this and met my husband

Ive been misunderstood, Dolph Lundgren tells me. Ive been taken for granted. Ive suffered: physically because of all the films I had to do; psychologically from my dad, and from people thinking Im a big, blond thug with no emotions who cant act. As he says this, he avoids eye contact. He fidgets with the recorder on the table between us. He shifts his weight back and forth in his seat. He seems eminently vulnerable. Its not a mode one expects from this mountain of a man. The 61-year-old is, after all, one of the most prolific and iconic action-movie actors of his generation. He has more than 80 film credits to his name, largely playing warriors and killers. He was He-Man. He was the Punisher. He was an Expendable. But, perhaps most important, he was Ivan Drago, the Soviet pugilist who nearly bested Sylvester Stallones title character in 1985s Rocky IV. In that film, Drago seems cold, bloodthirsty, driven, merciless anything but vulnerable. Then again, maybe we just didnt get to know Drago well enough. We certainly didnt get to know Lundgren well enough. Ever since his turn as Drago cemented him into celluloid history, people have made assumptions about the actor. They think that hes Russian, that hes dumb, that hes talentless. In actuality, hes Swedish. And he has a masters degree in chemical engineering. As for the talent bit, well, thats in the eye of the beholder. But with roles in two big-deal Hollywood pictures in as many months Creed II and Aquaman Lundgren is hoping he can prove to the world that hes more than a Nordic beast. Hes ready to be one of those former stars who stages a comeback as a dramatic performer in middle age. If he has his way, the Lundgrenaissance will soon be upon us. He has to convince the world that hes ready for that kind of career shift, but before that, he had to convince himself. In Creed II, Lundgren returns to the Rocky Cinematic Universe and reprises his role as Drago, a role that has been both his calling card and his burden for more than 30 years. When I first got the text from Stallone two years ago, he said and here Lundgren slips into a perfect Stallone mumble-grumble Hey, wanna play this guy again? And I was like, Oh, shit. Drago. Yes, Drago. Rocky IV was only Lundgrens second acting credit ever, but his performance etched itself into the cultural consciousness and changed his life forever. Just a few years prior to the 80s classics release, even the idea of being in a movie would have seemed completely alien to the man. Born in Sweden in 1957, his father was an engineer and, in Lundgrens telling, physically and emotionally abusive toward him in his youth. Nonetheless, the boy strove to prove he could succeed in the family business. An accomplished scholar athlete, he studied the sciences in Sweden and the United States throughout his teenage years, then earned his masters at the University of Sydney and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study at MIT.

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