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Bill Murray

Dolph Lundgren at the Hollywood premiere of The Expendables (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

Swedish action star of yore Dolph Lundgren needed only to hear that buddy and former on-screen rival Sylvester Stallone would be one of the guys appearing opposite him in retro adventure pic The Expendables to sign on, agreeing to go head to head with his Rocky IV co-star before the other bold-name talent – that would be Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Jet Li, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Bruce Willis, Randy Couture and even Arnold Schwarzenegger – was even confirmed.

“Stallone called me out of the blue - well, my agent said, ‘Stallone wants to talk to you about a movie,’” the youthful-looking Lundgren revealed while in Toronto to chat about the film. “This was about a year and a half ago and I thought it was not only a fun script that hadn't been made for a long time about a bunch of guys who go on a mission - like movies I used to see as a kid - but I was one of the guys and Stallone was one of the others and I thought, ‘That's all I need to know. I'm in.’”

Marking a return to the genre that originally made both him and Stallone household names, The Expendables focuses its gaze on a group of aging muscle-bound mercenaries who are hired by the shady Mr. Church (Willis) to head to South America to off a dictator, under the leadership of Stallone’s headstrong boss. All matter of intrigue, back-stabbing and Eric Roberts’ nutso agency man naturally get in the way but if you’ve ever wondered what a man would look like getting halved by a bazooka in night-vision, this film will gladly answer that for you.

With its nostalgic cast and comparatively straightforward storyline, the film offers an alternative to the influx of conflicted comic book hero movies that show diminutive dudes (Tobey Maguire, anyone from Kick-Ass, Michael Cera, etc.) battle formidable opponents thanks to the magic of CGI. But when one of the physically imposing 50-something actors threatens a baddie in this film, the danger inherently feels more real. These guys could reasonably do some damage and therein lies its roughhewn charm.

“I think what happened was that 15 years ago, CGI got so powerful that between the director, the CGI people, the stunt team, you can design a movie and drop almost anyone into that lead, if they’re a good actor,” offered Lundgren. “You can take a good, nice kid and drop them straight into that but you can’t drop them into Rambo: First Blood, it wouldn’t work, people wouldn’t believe it. And that’s the difference.”

In addition to the old-school badass-ness of it all, Lundgren got a chance to sink his teeth into an unhinged, drug-addled character who, he says, thankfully has more to do than crack skulls. Which he still does. A lot.

Expendables
Jet Li, Lundgren and Stallone in The Expendables (Photo credit: Karen Ballard)
“What I thought was cool about the character is that there’s actually something happening to him, he doesn’t just walk around with a gun and shoot people. He has a bit of a dilemma and he’s a flawed character, which is obviously much more interesting to play. You got something to do, something to think about while you’re sitting in your trailer. [Laughs] As an actor, even though he blows people away and he’s nuts, I thought, I get to play a guy who’s a bit pained and that was good.”

But portraying a conflicted man certainly didn’t mean the performance was lacking in testosterone. Reuniting with Stallone, who at 64 still has an incredibly ripped physique, and playing off other beefed-up action movie stalwarts, Lundgren revealed that a sense of friendly rivalry on-set pushed him to pump a little more iron.

“There was a bit of healthy competition cause you know, you’re next to other guys who have their own movies or are maybe bigger than you or better actors or have bigger arms or have more money or they run the state, or whatever it is. I was up against some guys who are bigger than me and more muscular than me and I kinda knew that [my character] Gunnar Jensen, he’s gotta be a bit more formidable, and have big arms, so I did more weight training for a while. But you know, everyone has some shortcomings and I think in that company everybody gets to be a bit of an underdog and feel some of their own inadequacies and that’s a good thing.”

But gathering a cast of actors whose names would be more likely to appear on a Spike TV ‘80s retrospective than mentioned in the same breath as the word underdog means that the lengthy, bloody fight sequences are still there, just peppered with winking nods to the crew’s over-the-hill status this time around, while Rourke is the only actor with a heavy scene that borders on emo. As expected, The Expendables takes its action, and story, quite seriously.

“The story’s always the most important but it’s a tough game,” admitted Lundgren. “This [genre] has been ruled by big-budget, CGI-ed movies and that’s what the kids wanna see five times but hopefully they’ll like this picture. It’s a ride. It’s more like a friendship picture I think and it stars men who are more capable of doing these things in real life. Real athletes, real fighters, ex-karate champions or like, football players and it’s a different animal. It’s a gamble Stallone is taking. It’s like he’s doing another Rambo with a bunch of guys, friends, kicking ass instead of Rambo doing it. Rambo worked but we don’t know if this one will work.”

Find out for yourself when The Expendables opens in Cineplex theatres August 13.



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