Latest / INSIGHT TODAY / Dolph Lundgren details his struggles and successes in new memoir, 'Fights Worth Fighting'

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Dolph Lundgren details his struggles and successes in new memoir, 'Fights Worth Fighting' · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: He's not a machine!
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: He's a man!
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: Be more man than him! I must break you.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Rocky is in serious trouble!
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: Breathe. Don't be scared.
• 0:18
  Speaker 4: You might recognize our next guest from the epic, classic
• 0:21
  Speaker 4: 1985 sports drama Rocky IV, portraying one of Rocky's all-time rivals,
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: the Soviet boxer Ivan Drago. Four decades after rising to
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: fame with that role, actor Dolph Lundgren is out with
• 0:33
  Speaker 4: a new autobiography titled Fights Worth Fighting, Finding Strength in Struggle.
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: And the book highlights the real-life battles that he has
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: faced behind the scenes today. including cancer. And the actor, filmmaker,
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: and martial artist, Dolph Lundgren, joins us now.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Dolph, great to see you. Nice to meet you. Congratulations
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: on the book.
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  Speaker 4: And we will turn to some of those more hidden
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: chapters of your life in a moment. But we do
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: have to start with your iconic role. And my question is,
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: what is it like to be so synonymous with one character?
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, you, of course, have this very deep breath
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  Speaker 1: of life.
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  Speaker 4: But that's the one that people are going to come
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: up to you and say, I know that guy.
• 1:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's number one. You have He-Man, Masters of the Universe.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Of course.
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: They just had their remake of that. Of course, you
• 1:18
  Speaker 5: have the four Expendables movies, Aquaman. Yeah, to a lot
• 1:22
  Speaker 5: of people, you know, people, they think of Ivan Drago
• 1:25
  Speaker 5: because once you see somebody on screen the first time,
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: it has a big impression. You know, if you're the Terminator,
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: you'll always be the Terminator, you know.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, it's okay.
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: I've made 100 movies, so I don't mind. I mean,
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: some stand out. I actually, I heard an interview with
• 1:44
  Speaker 5: Johnny Depp. He said he did a film, Marlon Brando,
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: and Brando asked him, how many movies do you make?
• 1:51
  Speaker 5: How many movies do you make here?
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  Speaker 3: And he said.
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: About three or four, he says, best to many. Like
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: you only have so many faces. So I think, you know,
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: most careers you have three or four characters, people know.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: And I imagine a blessing and a curse to have
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: a synonymous role like that.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: It's okay. Do people challenge you to fights?
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  Speaker 3: No, I'm too big.
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  Speaker 4: I was going to say, I would definitely bet on you.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: So as you say, you've had a very lengthy and
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: accomplished career. Why is now the right time? to put
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: it on page and say, look, I want to share
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: with my fans, I want to share with those who
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: care about Hollywood the rest of my story?
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  Speaker 5: Well, what happened was I was working on a documentary.
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: There was a documentary being filmed about my life. And
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: it started in 2020, and I had a cancer diagnosis
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: at the same time. So we had to recut the documentary.
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: And at the same time, when the treatment started to work,
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: because the cancer treatments were not working that well, and
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: I wasn't sure if I was going to be around
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: for the premiere of this documentary. And at the same time,
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: I was approached by a couple of publishers, so I thought, yeah,
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: I might as well tell the story, both with the
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: documentary and in book form.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: It's a different medium.
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  Speaker 4: We should mention the documentary Dolph Unbreakable comes out October 6th.
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: I was struck by how candid you are in the book,
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: particularly in the fight against cancer and even floating the
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: idea that it may have been connected to choosing to
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: use steroids and HGH to get the physique you needed
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: for your roles and for your fighting.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: My oncologist says there's no conclusive evidence, but she did
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: have other patients that had kidney cancer that used steroids
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: like bodybuilders and such. So I think especially HGH is
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: probably not a good idea because if you have anything
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: growing in your body, whether it's your biceps or a tumor,
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: it'll make it grow faster.
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: So what do you want people to To readers who
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: know you from the screen and now are picking up
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: this book, what are some things that might surprise them
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: about you?
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  Speaker 5: Well, chemical engineering. I guess there are not too many
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: chemical engineers in the action movie business. I think I'm
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: trying to be honest here and vulnerable and open about.
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  Speaker 3: Everything I've been through. Also, when I first came to New.
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: York, this lovely city, I was, you know, I was
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: dragged off to Studio 54, ran into Andy Warhol, a
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: few other people. And that's kind of an interesting part
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: of my life. But I think mostly I'm trying to
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: sort of show that there is this real.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Struggle behind the movies.
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  Speaker 5: And I think there is a point in trying to.
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  Speaker 5: Be resilient to get up no matter how many times
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  Speaker 5: you get knocked down and keep going.
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  Speaker 3: Because life is beautiful.
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: And certainly, I mean, the book details some of the
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: struggles you have had, including there's a home invasion issues
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: with abuse with your family members. We will let people
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: read it for themselves. But fighting is the theme for you.
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: Yes.
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  Speaker 4: You know, in your life, but also are you still
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: in the ring? Are you still, we see, we're seeing
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: pictures here. Uh, you know, is that something that you
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: still do?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I do hit the pads, hit the bag. I
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: like to do it.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah. It's, it's, it keeps me honest and I've done
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: it since I was 13. So I enjoy it. All right.
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: Well, as we mentioned, we have a clip actually of
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: the new documentary.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: It's titled Dolph unbreakable. Let's watch a bit of the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: trailer now.
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  Speaker 3: Thanks. I've led like five lifetimes in one.
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  Speaker 1: That is an extraordinary career.
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  Speaker 3: I will kill you. I will break you.
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  Speaker 5: He has skills that other actors didn't have.
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  Speaker 1: Dolph will give everything in a thousand percent.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I'd have to do what I had to do,
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  Speaker 3: you know? I had a feeling that it became too much.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: And as you saw there, the documentary includes interviews, the
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme.
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  Speaker 1: Is there like a brotherhood of 80s, 90s action stars?
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: I think so. Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: I'm good friends with Sly and Arnold. And I look
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: up to them. They're kind of mentors. And Jean-Claude, I
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: did three or four movies with. And I think, yeah,
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: we all, some of us share a similar background and
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: similar struggles. And I I think both, I know Sly's
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: got a book coming out, I think, next week about
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: the first Rocky movie. And Arnold is doing a book,
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: I heard. And we all have documentaries. So I think
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: we all, we kind of just walk, you know, shoulder
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: to shoulder.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: To the future.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Big shoulders, we should note. Very big shoulders.
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: The new book, Fights Worth Fighting, Finding Strength and Struggle,
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: available now. And the new documentary is, Dolph Unbreakable debuts
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: on all major streaming platforms October 6th. Author, actor, filmmaker,
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: martial artist, and much more. Dolph Lundgren, thank you so much.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: Thanks, man. All right. Hey, it's Rachel.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I am so glad to see you at the end
• 6:54
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• 6:56
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• 7:18
  Speaker 3: Thanks.