Dolph Lundgren: ‘I had a fling with Grace Jones in the Bahamas’ (2024)

Dolph Lundgren, 65, is a martial artist and action-movie star. Born in Sweden, he moved to the US as a teenager and secured a leading role in only his second film, Rocky IV, playing the Russian boxer Ivan Drago. Lundgren has two grown-up daughters from his first marriage and recently married for a second time, to the Norwegian personal trainer Emma Krokdal. They live in Los Angeles

In the early Eighties I was studying in Sydney and working as a nightclub security guy to earn a few bucks. That’s where I met Grace Jones and, y’know . . . we kind of had a thing for a while. After she went back to her home in Nassau, in the Bahamas, she called and asked me to go there for a holiday. I flew via LA and Miami, and for the first part of that journey — more than 12 hours — I sat between two Australian rugby players. I was a young guy then and pretty tough — I worked out a lot and did my martial arts — but I’m almost 6ft 5in tall, and that flight took me right to the limit. We were all so cramped and trying to step over each other; my back was killing me and my legs kept going to sleep. Probably the best thing about my career taking off after Rocky IV was being able to afford to fly first class.

That film has followed me all around the world — in a good way! Some years after it came out I was in Bali, walking along this beautiful, quiet beach just as the sun was going down. There was hardly anyone around and it was one of those moments when you are knocked out by the power of Mother Nature. I turned to face the sea and noticed a fisherman bringing his little boat to shore. If I had been making a film, this scene couldn’t have been any more perfect. For a couple of minutes I watched this guy, until he finally jumped off the boat and started walking up the beach towards me. At first I was worried that I’d offended him; some dumb tourist staring at him while he was trying to work. As he got closer he became very angry. He was more than a foot shorter than me, but he pushed his face into mine and said, “Dolph Lundgren. I will break you!” — a take on my line from Rocky. Then he broke into a big smile and we both laughed our asses off.

It’s ironic that I get recognised on a deserted beach, but I can be working out in the gym of a five-star hotel in New York or Paris and no one will notice me. Everyone is so busy on their phones, checking the stock market or liking pictures on Facebook, even when they’re on holiday.

If I’m going away with my family, I always try to book a couple of weeks on an island. I can sense all you armchair psychologists out there, thinking: “You like islands because you see yourself as an island, Dolph.” Not at all. I like them because island people make me feel more welcome. That’s why I decided to get married on Mykonos this year. There is something very special about being surrounded by water. I feel closer to nature.

OK, I will admit that my childhood in Stockholm was difficult and I did cut myself off for a while. Dad and I didn’t really get on and I was always in trouble with the police, so at 13 I was sent to live with my grandparents in Nyland, on the east coast of Sweden. Technically it wasn’t a holiday, but that’s what it felt like to me. I spent so many weekends just walking through the forest and swimming in the crystal clear lakes. It was the first time I’d had a sense of peace, being away from the world and all its problems.

Looking back it was a pretty smart move from my dad, because he could see the path I was going down. All those kids I used to hang around with ended up on drugs, in jail or dead. That could have been me.

Ever since that experience I’ve used travel as a way of finding myself. I don’t mean that in the philosophical sense, I mean . . . how can I explain this? When you go to a new town you can be a new you. After what happened with my dad, I didn’t have much confidence as a kid. I was trapped by insecurity. But when I got on a plane and went some place where people didn’t know me and didn’t know my dad, I was able to relax and not feel that I was going to mess everything up. Maybe that’s how I got into acting; my job is to go somewhere and be a different person.

In the western world we are all so used to travelling we can sometimes forget that not everybody has this luxury. I’ve spent a lot of time in South Africa and Namibia over the years, and have been privileged to get quite close to some of the people I’ve worked with there — the drivers, the security guards. They’ve shown me what real life is like for them. Sure, things have moved a long way since the days of apartheid, but you’ve still got millions and millions of people — and this is true of countries all over the world — who will never have enough money to buy a plane ticket.

I hope I never forget how lucky I am. I hope we never forget how lucky we all are.

The Expendables 4, starring Dolph Lundgren, is released on September 22

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