Dolph Lundgren Biography
Dolph Lundgren is a Swedish filmmaker, actor, and martial artist. He is best known for starring in Creed II (2018), Arrow (2017), Aquaman (2018), Castle Falls (2021), and Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022).
Dolph Lundgren Career
Lundgren learned about martial arts for the first time while he was in the service. In just five years, he had risen to the top of the Japanese Karate world and was deeply involved with a sport that would become a big part of his life. After Dolph graduated from high school, he studied for a long time in the US and abroad on different academic grants.
He went to college at both Washington State University and Clemson University in South Carolina. In 1982, he got a grant to go to the University of Sydney, Australia, and get his Master’s degree in chemical engineering. He got a Fulbright grant to go to one of the best engineering schools in the world, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, in 1983.
But he chose to move to New York City and become an actor that same year. His first name changed to Dolph. He didn’t know how quickly his life was going to change when he started taking acting classes at the Warren Robertson Theatre Workshop in Manhattan. His first movie was A View to a Kill (1985). But it was his role in Rocky IV (1985), which came out later that year, that made people take notice of him. After 9 months of auditions with 5,000 other hopefuls, he was cast opposite Sylvester Stallone as “Ivan Drago,” his Russian opponent. After Rocky IV (1985) did well at the box office, Dolph Lundgren went to Los Angeles and has been in more than 30 movies since then.
In movies like Gary Goddard’s Masters of the Universe (1987), Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991), which starred Brandon Lee, and John Woo’s Blackjack (1998), Lundgren played the classic action hero. Lundgren has also continued to give memorable performances as the main bad guy to other action stars. Two examples are Roland Emmerich’s Universal Soldier (1992), in which he starred opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Robert Longo’s Johnny Mnemonic (1995), in which he starred opposite Keanu Reeves. Lundgren’s first full-length movie, the thriller The Defender (2004), came out in February 2004. He also acted in it. One more movie, The Russian Specialist (2005) (also written as “The Russian Specialist”), came out in 2005 and starred him.
He finished filming L’inchiesta (2006) in January 2006. The movie was a joint Italian, American, and Spanish production directed by Giulio Base and starred him opposite Daniele Liotti, Max von Sydow, and F. Murray Abraham. Lundgren played the lead role in Diamond Dogs (2007), a Chinese-American co-production that was shot in Mongolia.
His 2007 movie Missionary Man, a modern western set in Texas, was a big hit. Lundgren directed two new movies in 2009. The first was the action-packed Command Performance, which shows off his longtime musical skills as a drummer. The second was the neo-noir film Dolph Lundgren Is the Killing Machine. Lundgren also worked with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Sylvester Stallone again in Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009) and the much-anticipated action hit The Expendables (2010).
Lundgren didn’t let his work in Hollywood get in the way of his athletic past. It was given to him by the World Karate Organization in Tokyo as a Third Degree Black Belt. As captain of the Swedish National Karate Team and winner of the Swedish, European, and Australian Heavyweight Division titles, he has done many great things.
Lundgren still does Karate shows at international tournaments all over the world daily. He was also chosen by the U.S. Olympic Committee to be the Team Leader of the U.S. Olympic Pentathlon Team at the Atlanta Games in 1996. He is constantly working to improve the image of this sport. His company, Thor Pictures, is working on several projects that he will either produce, star in or direct. Besides that, he helped start the New York theater group “Group of Eight” in 1994.
Lundgren is said to be working on an exercise book and a line of sportswear for men. He is also said to be creating and launching a new brand with his name, as well as a licensing, media, and publishing program and planning new entertainment and media projects. Lundgren was married to Anette Qviberg-Lundgren, who designed clothes and decorated homes until they split up in 2011. They had two girls together.
Dolph Lundgren Education
Lundgren went to the United States on academic scholarships in the 1970s to study chemical engineering at Washington State University and Clemson University after finishing high school with all A’s. Between 1975 and 1976, he studied chemical engineering for a year at Washington State University. After that, he had to serve his required year in the Swedish Coastal Artillery at the Coastal Ranger School. In the late 1970s, he started going to the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He got his degree in chemical engineering in the early 1980s.
During his years of learning, Lundgren trained in the dojo for five years to improve his karate skills. By the late 1970s, he had earned a black belt in Kyokushin. He was the leader of the Swedish Kyokushin karate team and competed in the Kyokushin Karate Organization’s World Open Tournament in 1979. It was the European championships for him in 1980 and 1981. In 1982, he won a full-contact karate event in Australia. A master’s degree in chemical engineering was earned by Lundgren from the University of Sydney in 1982. While he was in Sydney, he worked as a guard in a club in the infamous King’s Cross neighborhood.
Dolph Lundgren Age
Lundgren was born on November 3, 1957, in Stockholm, Sweden. He is 67 years old as of 2024, and he celebrates his birthday on the 3rd of November every year.
Dolph Lundgren Height and Weight
Lundgren stands at a height of 6 feet 5 inches tall (1.95m) and weighs 110 kgs (243 lbs).
Dolph Lundgren Family
Lundgren was born in Spanga to Sigrid Birgitta Tjerneld (mother), who was a language teacher, and Karl Hugo Johan Lundgren (father) who was an engineer and economist for the Swedish government. His father died in 2000 and his mother in 1992. Lundgren lived in Spånga until he was 13 years old, when he went to Nyland, Ångermanland, to live with his grandparents.
Some sources say he was born in 1959, which isn’t true; Lundgren himself has said it was 1957. He has a younger brother named Johan and two sisters named Katarina and Annika. Lundgren has two sisters; Annika Lundgren and Katharina Lundgren and a younger brother Johan Lundgren.
According to Lundgren, his father hit his wife and oldest son as a way of getting rid of his anger. He said that his father would call him a “loser” when he was angry, which made him want to prove himself even more. However, he added, “No matter what, I still love my dad.” I still like a lot of things about him. I was too much like him as a child; I was very stubborn, which may have been what he couldn’t handle. According to him, his desire to take part in rough sports like fighting and karate came from having a difficult relationship with his father.
Dolph Lundgren Wife
Lundgren is currently married to Emma Krokdal, a Norwegian personal trainer. They met in early 2020 and proposed to her in June 2020. They tied the knot at their villa in Mykonos on July 13, 2023. He was previously in a relationship with Jenny Sanderson from 2011 to 2017.
In the 1980s, Lundgren dated American model Paula Barbieri and Jamaican singer Grace Jones. Jones saw Lundgren at a dance club and hired him as a protector while he was on an exchange program with the University of Sydney in Australia to get his master’s degree in chemical engineering. Lundgren was taken across the ocean to the United States, where he finished his thesis.
Dolph Lundgren First Wife
Lundgren was previously married to a jewelry designer and fashion stylist Anette Qviberg in Marbella. They were blessed with two daughters named Ida Sigrid Lundgren, an actress (born 1996), and Greta Eveline Lundgren (born 2001), both were born in Stockholm. The family lived in Marbella where they rented accommodations for a few years and thereafter bought a family home there.
They said they chose to live outside of Hollywood so that their kids could have as normal of a life as possible. Three masked thieves are said to have broken into Lundgren’s Marbella home in early May 2009. The thieves tied up and threatened his wife, but they left when they saw a family picture and knew that Lundgren owned the house.
Later, Lundgren said he thought the intruders were from Eastern Europe and had asked people he knew in Bulgaria to look into them but had not heard back. Following the event, Ida Lundgren, the older daughter, had PTSD. Anette and Lundgren split up in 2011 for reasons that are still unknown.
Dolph Lundgren Net Worth
Lundgren has an estimated net worth of about $10 Million – $20 Million which he has earned through his career as an actor.
Dolph Lundgren Salary
Lundgren earns a salary of about $1 M-$5 M annually.
Dolph Lundgren Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
Lundgren plays the role of King Nereus in the film Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. King Nereus of Xebel, who liked to fight, has never been above using murder and plots to get what he wants in politics.
Nereus led the army of the underwater kingdom of Xebel, which grew out of the original land of Atlantis, and later became its ruler.
It seemed like Xebel and Atlantis were always at odds with each other. They fought many fights over hundreds of years. Atlantis finally got the upper hand and trapped Xebel in a magical barrier that wouldn’t let the people of Atlantis leave their home, which was in the area that people on Earth call the Bermuda Triangle. Ships could get into Xebel, but almost none of them could get out.
Dolph Lundgren Wanted Man
The American action movie Wanted Man is coming out soon. Lundgren stars as Travis Johansen and is a director, and he and Michael Worth wrote the script. The movie will be shown in some cinemas and on video on demand in the US on January 17, 2024.
Dolph Lundgren Cancer
Lundgren was first diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2015. He started treatment right away while still working on movies like Aquaman and Creed 2. Lundgren was lucky to get a second opinion from Dr. Alexandra Drakaki, an oncologist, who did another biopsy. She found a gene that made the cancer treatable with medicine, and the medicine has helped cut the tumors by 90%.
Dolph Lundgren Daughter
Lundgren’s daughter Ida Lundgren was born on April 29, 1996, in Stockholm, Stockholms lan, Sweden. In-Depth with Graham Bensinger (2010), Command Performance (2009), and Castle Falls (2021) are some of the movies she has been featured in. Greta Lundgren, his other daughter has also been featured in a film named Dolph.
Dolph Lundgren Movies and TV Shows
- Retrograde
- Blackjack
- The Peacekeeper
- The Shooter
- Wanted Man
- Castle Falls
- Icarus
- Command Performance
- Missionary Man
- The Mechanik
- The Defender
- Universal Soldier
- Blackjack
- Silent Trigger
Dolph Lundgren Social Media Platforms
Lundgren is very active on his Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook pages and he has 221.1k followers on Twitter 3.2M followers on Instagram, and 6.8M followers on Facebook.