‘Still learning’ as director, Dolph Lundgren embraces 'dead-serious comedy' game show

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Dolph Lundgren said he still is learning after his eighth film as a director, Wanted Man, which is in theaters and on digital video-on-demand Friday.

Two days earlier, Lundren will host the game show, Flip a Coin, which premieres Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. EST on Fubo's Maximum Effort Channel.

Best known as Rocky opponent Ivan Drago, with his catch phrase "I must break you," Lundgren, 66, officially began to direct with 2004's The Defender. But, he said he considered himself a director when he was a child.

"I used to direct my poor brothers and sisters in all these different war games and wild west shows," Lundgren told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. "I'm still learning, and every time I see 'A Film By Dolph Lundgren,' I always think that next time I'm going to do X, Y, Z."

Directs, stars in 'Wanted Man'

Wanted Man stars Lundgren as Travis Johansen, a Los Angeles police officer with strong anti-immigrant views. When he's assigned to escort a witness to a murder, he learns things that change his views.

Christina Villa plays witness Rosa Barranco, an immigrant from Mexico. Wanted Man is only Villa's fourth credit, but she stood out to Lundgren among 50 auditioning actors.

"It had to be someone who was believable as a Hispanic woman from Mexico who could speak Spanish fluently," Lundgren said. He added that Villa also had to "look right for the part and could deliver all the different emotions needed."

Lundgren said Villa comes from an immigrant family and offered suggestions that made it into the film. He said he respected Villa's advice related to undocumented immigrants in the film.

"Dialogue in Spanish was changed," Lundgren said. "Also, instead of illegal immigrant, [we say] undocumented person."

As a director, Lundgren said he prefers to limit most scenes to three takes, adding that he trusts his actors to give their best. He feels excessive retakes gain little.

"Usually, it's better to then shoot another angle or new setup instead of keep going after the same moment again," Lundgren said. "So, I'm pretty quick."

Hosting 'Flip a Coin'

Fliip a Coin is exactly what it sounds like. It is a half-hour game show in which Lundgren flips a coin for contestants 21 times per episode.

Maximum Effort is Ryan Reynolds and George Dewey's company. And the premise of the game show is intended to be comical.

"It's like dead-serious comedy," Lundgren said. "The whole concept is hilarious, just flipping a coin for 30 minutes. We'll see how it works."

The show also allows Lundgren to speak in his native Swedish.

"I speak pretty much Swedish all the time, all the way through, and it's subtitled," Lundgren said.

Though the game show is a joke, Lundgren said flipping a coin was serious work.

The show created a fake Swedish coin to be flipped, and it took a while to get it to make it look smooth," Lundgren said. "It was hard to flip it because it wasn't as heavy as a regular coin."

Battling cancer

Last year, Lundgren revealed he had been battling cancer in a May appearance on In Depth with Graham Bensinger via CNN. Doctors found a tumor in his kidney in 2015.

However, it was only 2021 when Lundgren got a second opinion from California oncologist Alexandra Drakaki, which turned his prospects around.

"I went through some really rough times back in '21 when I was shooting The Expendables and Aquaman in London," Lundgren told UPI. "That's when it got really bad."

Working out of UCLA, Drakaki recommended a different treatment than what Lundgren's Cedar Sinai doctors had prescribed.

"As soon as she rediagnosed it, I got different medication, everything shrunk and everything got better," Lundgren said. "They removed a lot of those tumors last year. Things are good."

Lundgren has been acting since a cameo appearance in the 1985 James Bond film, A View to a Kill. He was dating Grace Jones at the time, and director John Glen asked him to appear in a scene.

"I remember John Glen said, 'Very, very well done. You could probably be in the movies,'" Lundgren said. "Of course, a year later I was doing Rocky IV, so he was right."

Lundgren's '80s output also included Masters of the Universe, Red Scorpion and the first film adaptation of The Punisher. He has not stopped working since.

Those '80s glory days got a callback in a recent Old Spice commercial that began airing in 2022. Lundgren appears as he did in Rocky IV with spiked hair in an action scene akin to '80s movies.

He said the commercial used deepfake technology to place his '80s face on a body double. Still, it was impossible to find a perfect match for Lundgren.

"They hired somebody to play me who wasn't really as big and muscular as I used to be back in those days," Lundgren said.