Men’s Health caught up with legendary action star—and DCEU star in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom—Dolph Lundgren, who kindly responded to some specious internet comments. (Topics: his diet, his workouts, his chemical engineering degree, and his famous big-chested roles.)
Lundgren answered one comment concerning a famous on-set Rocky IV rumor; the commenter wanted to know if the legend was true.
The comment, taken from Reddit, recaps an incident in which Sylvester Stallone asked Lundgren (who plays Ivan Drago) to hit him for real during filming. Lundgren, the rumor goes on to say, hit Stallone so hard that he spent 9 days in an intensive care unit. Lundgren later allegedly said, unsympathetically, “All I did was obey orders.”
“In 1985, there’s no CGI,” Lundgren explains, responding to the comment. “Everything has to happen on screen, in-camera. So we both got hit, especially to the body. We shot for two weeks—that last fight—in Vancouver. And then I come back to LA, and the producer calls me and says, ‘Hey Dolph, you got a couple weeks off.’ I go, ‘Great. What’s going on?’ [He says,] ‘Oh, Sly’s in the hospital.’ Then I heard they blamed me for it.”
Lundgren grins.
“I think it was like an insurance scam or something. I mean, I did hit him. … And in those days, I was in pretty good shape.”
Stallone’s account of the incident also tells of a delayed reaction to the real punches the two actors were exchanging:
“He pulverized me and I did not feel it at that moment but later that night my heart started to swell. He had bruised the pericardial sac, which is when the heart hits the chest – like in a car accident when your chest hits the steering wheel. My blood pressure went up to 260. They thought I was going to be talking to angels…Next thing I know, I’m on a low-altitude plane to the emergency room, and I’m in intensive care for four days. And there are all these nuns around.”
Stallone has also said he was the one who goaded Lundgren into hitting him. Lundgren doesn’t seem to remember hearing the order from Sly. He just remembers the call from the producer—and the much-needed couple weeks off after a brutal shoot.
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