The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - 356: Dolph Lundgren - Fighting Rocky and Beating Cancer

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

SPONSORS: SimpliSafe -Visit https://www.SimpliSafe.com/HONEYDEW to save 50% on a SimpliSafe home security system BetterHelp -The HoneyDew is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit https://www.Betterhelp.com/HONEYDEW  to get 10% off your first month My HoneyDew this week is legendary action star Dolph Lundgren! Check out his latest project Hard Cut Vodka, and keep an eye out for his documentary releasing early next year! Dolph joins me to Highlight the Lowlights of his life, from a strict upbringing and emotional trauma to battling cancer and finding new purpose. He opens up about his recovery journey, being his own medical advocate, and how near-death experiences reshaped his outlook on life. Dolph also shares wild Hollywood stories from Rocky IV and Creed II, to the hilarious home invasion that left burglars terrified. My new standup special “Live and Alive” premieres on my YouTube channel THIS Friday, October 24 at 9 PM EST/6 PM PST! Set your reminders now! I’ll be in the live chat talking with y’all for the whole premiere! Join me and let’s have some fun! SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE and watch full episodes of The Dew every toozdee! https://youtube.com/@rsickler SUBSCRIBE TO MY PATREON - The HoneyDew with Y’all, where I Highlight the Lowlights with Y’all! Get audio and video of The HoneyDew a day early, ad-free at no additional cost! It’s only $5/month! AND we just added a second tier. For a total of $8/month, you get everything from the first tier, PLUS The Wayback a day early, ad-free AND censor free AND extra bonus content you won't see anywhere else! http://patreon.com/RyanSickler What’s your story?? Submit at [e-mail] Get Your HoneyDew Gear Today! https://shop.ryansickler.com/ Ringtones Are Available Now! https://www.apple.com/itunes/ http://ryansickler.com/ https://thehoneydewpodcast.com/ SUBSCRIBE TO THE CRABFEAST PODCAST https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-crabfeast-with-ryan-sickler-and-jay-larson/id1452403187

Hey, guys, this Friday is the premiere of my new special Live and Alive on my YouTube. All right, I'm going to be live in the comments. Make sure you get over there. You join me. There's a countdown going on right now. You can get over there, set a reminder, be there, be live in the comments. You know what happened on my last special YouTube demonetized it. But when I did the way back, over 2,000 of you guys showed up and we went live and we had a great time.

So come join me this Friday, this Friday, October 24th, 6 p.m. Eastern, 9 p.m. Pacific. I'll be live in the comments for the premiere. Join me. Let's have a good time. And then they come in and they say, Mr. Sickler, you are lucky to be alive. You have massive pulmonary embolisms. They travel through your heart. Your heart is swollen twice at size. And we're going to be honest with you, the next 48 hours are touch and go. you're probably going to want to make some calls and I was like my phone's dead

I was playing it on three hours you know what I'm saying? I came in with it on 66%. I didn't even bother gassing it up and I knew things were about to get wild when I heard one of the surgeons say well Mr. Sickler you and your phone are about to have a lot in common I said oh my God What kind of bedside manner is that for somebody with Blue Shield Silver?

You're talking to me like, I got the bronze package right now, and I'm not really feeling it. So back your Kaiser Permanente attitude up and recognize my second-tier status. The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler. Welcome back to the honeydew, y'all. We're over here doing it in the nightpan studios. I'm Ryan Sickler, Ryan Sickler, and Ryan Sickler on all your social media. And I'm starting this episode like I start them all with gratitude saying thank you. Thank you for watching this show.

Thank you for supporting this show. The guests. I love doing this. And you know what we do here. We highlight the low lights. I always say these are the stories. behind the storytellers. I'm very excited to have this guest on. Ladies and gentlemen, the one and only, Dolf Lundgren, welcome to the honeydew dog Lundgren. I can't even believe you're

sitting there right now. Thanks. I'm so stoked to have here. I'll shut up right now and let you do your biz here. Before we get into anything, please promote it all. Promote it all. Well, I have a few little things. I got a vodka called hard cut vodka, potato vodka, overproof, 90 proof, 45%, you know, potatoes creamier, only about 1% of all vodkas in America made from potatoes. 1%. Yes, corn is, Titos is corn. A lot of the other ones are green is cheaper and easier.

Potato is the original way and Swedish way, but we made it in Idaho. This is what I want to ask you. You're a Swedish guy. So why, is there a difference in the way Idaho does it than Sweden does it? Because you say the original, but you just... No, not really. No. I don't think so.

I think that the Idaho way has been really good. It's a very smooth vodka, and it's 45%, so it has a kick. Like we said, hard cut, smooth finish. So it's been out for about five months here in California. We're also in New York, and we're going to Florida in about a month. So, yeah, check it out. We take our vodka seriously, but we don't. take the brand seriously we try to have some fun that's great where and can we find this in stores now

yet yeah this is a betmo um and also a total wine and starting to and we're in let's some good on-premise accounts like uh we're at chippriani we're at madeo tau sky bar they're saying come closer than mike sky bar tau um madeo um you know chipriani uh mr chow we're We're at some top restaurants in Beverly Hills and West Hollywood and also in Palm Springs. And we're also, we're trying to kind of teach people that vodka doesn't have to taste like aviation fuels. Like most people think it's got to do that thing in the back your throat. It is as smooth as a tequila. And it's people seem to like it a lot.

So check it out. I'll give you this bottle after that. I have, dude, I appreciate it. We'll see how it goes. Yeah. I, you just said something that resonated with me because tequila, I was, I'm a, I used to drink tequila a lot. Yeah. And I, um, you too.

I didn't know what good tequila was. I dated a girl years ago who worked at a tequila bar and she goes, let me give you a shot of this up here. And they, they move a ladder over. She climbs up. And I tell you, Dolf, when I had that, I was like, okay, this must be what it's supposed to be like, we get the dumb down version in the gross. grocery stores or wherever but man and then she gave me that vodka oh just just velvet no burn no nothing and then i also think like i could have 40 shots of this i feel like you know or at least 15 yeah yeah that's same with vodka people just aren't really educated about it like

tequila when i was when i was a teenager you had if you got whole of tequila it was you know you didn't care what it tasted like yeah exactly it's terrible you just want to get drunk beer all of it But there's a more sophisticated way to drink it, and there's this more sophisticated way to drink vodka and do it with hard cuts. Boom. So that's one thing I'm working on. I have a documentary that's in the works coming out sometime early next year. Is that going to be about your life, or are you producing a documentary about something? Co-produced documentary about me.

About you, okay. Yeah, I actually was done by a Canadian company. And then we had some problems in post-production, so I kind of came in as a producer and helped with finding the proper editors and so forth. We're showing it at the Newport Film Festival, Newport Beach Film Festival. That's in October. We're also in Europe, in Italy, a Turin Festival. We have submitted to Sundance, see how that goes. And we're also being shown at TIF this week.

At Toronto Film Festival, yeah. All right. And you have a book as well. There's a book, yeah, with Harper Collins. It's a autobiography. I wrote to this guy. It's also kind of focuses on my life. The last five years or so in my life have been kind of overshadowed by this cancer journey I had.

medical adventure that was the biggest challenge I've had so far in my life, even though I've been through a lot before that. And both the book and the documentary are kind of, especially the documentary, we have to reframe it because it started shooting it while I was in that, in doing the treatments. Actually, I got the first cancer diagnosis just around. the time we started shooting. So I didn't tell the producers for a long time for about two years. So when I, when I find I told. Wait, I'm sorry. I got to interrupt you. You're telling me that you hid your diagnosis from the producers for two years while you were, while you were doing this documentary?

Yeah, for a year. How? Well, I just, I mean, I look good. So they couldn't tell. But they weren't following you to see, we got to get into the story. No, they weren't following me around. Okay. All the time because it's through COVID. So during COVID. You can't, couldn't really be there all the time. So you were able to actually keep them shielded from it because of that. Yeah, because I didn't know how serious it was. Yeah. But when I realized it was quite serious, then I had to bring them in on it.

So let's jump back to the beginning for a second because you're just, I mean, you're an iconic fucking figure from my goddamn childhood. I cannot believe you're sitting over there, brother. I mean, you're everything. You're an expendable. You're all of it, brother. Thanks. But let's find out a little bit about you.

Tell me about your mom and your dad. What did mom do? What did dad do for a living? My mom was a linguist in Sweden. I was born in Sweden outside of Stockholm. My mom was a linguist. Came from a kind of upper middle class family. She studied in London and in France as well, when she was young right after the Second World War.

And her dad had this radio factory. they were making radio gramophones remember those big the real pretty ones that yeah yeah it was like a kind of like a piece of furniture you may have seen it looked like a flower that came out yeah yeah and they had like the gramophone in there the record player had like a radio he manufactured those and my dad was an engineer he was

from the northern part of sweden from kind of a poorer part of sweden and he he came to Stockholm to study and then he worked for my, for his future father-in-law, my mom's dad. Okay. Then he started dating the boss's daughter. Oh, shit. Oh, it happened the other way around.

Yeah. Not dating first, then hired by dad. No. Oh. No. Okay. All right. He was hired by dad.

Then he dated the daughter and then they got married. And he was still studying at that time. And I was born after about two years of marriage in the 50s. So this is seven years after the end of the Second World War. And are you the first, your parents' first child? First, yeah, first born. So I realized later in life that I was born 12 years after they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. So it wasn't that far.

It was like if it would have happened now in 2013. So that's crazy. Right around the corner. And that's crazy. That's longer than 9-11 happened to go. Yeah. It's crazy. I mean, sooner, closer than, yeah. It's crazy.

It's crazy. So it was very recent. So when I grew up in Europe, but obviously millions of people had been killed, it was sort of, it was in the shadow of the Second World War, pretty much. And Sweden was a neutral country. It was never, Sweden was never invaded or didn't take part. It was kind of a neutral country who sheltered refugees and took in pie. pilots, allied pilots, and got them back to England and so forth. But that's where I grew up.

Okay. And what sort of dad was your dad? Was he a disciplinarian? Was he a strict guy? Was he? My dad was a character. He was also an army officer. Now, in those days, everybody had to be in the armed services. We had conscription of Sweden after the war. He was a captain in the reserves. So he was an officer. I would go with him to different exercises, maneuvers, firing live artillery and machine guns and all this. So that's why I got interested in military matters. Later, of course, this kind of became part of my career, playing soldiers. But my dad was a tough guy. He was certainly traumatized from his background, from his upbringing. I realized that now. He he was the oldest her his family could only afford to educate one child out of four so they sent him

to school is that right that's how it worked he picked the one to go yeah back in there this is in the 40s okay um he was born in the 1920s so he was in the world he was he was drafted during the second world war he was very young but he was on the border the Norwegian border where the germans were you know within eye distance of uh of where they were were stationed. And they kind of knew that if in Germany attacked Sweden, that they would be the first to go because the German war machine was much more powerful in Sweden. So he always had that in the back of his head. But he was a disciplinarian. He had some trauma. I don't know what it was, but something from his childhood. So he was, he had like a, he was bipolar, you would

say like a sort of a combination of bipolar and some kind of almost schizophrenia so he was very violent towards my mother he beat her a lot and he beat me i had three siblings but he never touched them which is me only my mom were your other siblings you have any brothers yes so it wasn't a boy girl thing no it wasn't that i think it was i think i reminded him of myself i reminded him of himself And I think also, when I was young, I think I was quite strong-willed. I probably didn't do what he told me to do all the time, but I can't remember. And I think perhaps the fact that he was very insecure, I think, as a man. And I think the fact that my mother had this baby boy who she probably, you know, was in love with, you know, and took care and was very kind of doting over me.

And I think he was jealous maybe too. So there you go. And so when you grew up, I've read you described yourself as a runt and you had, you were, you were an allergy kid too? Yeah, I had. I can't imagine you ever being. Tell me that first before you tell me when you hit that growth spurt.

Well, I think what happened was partially I was a late developer, as I say. But I developed something called, it's a disease called croup. And something happens in your throat where you can. can't breathe properly. And I had something called false croup, which is something where it's not quite as severe. They don't normally, otherwise, the men have to cut your throat open and put a breathing tube in. But for me, I just had asthma, very serious asthma. And I, when I did therapy much later, my therapist suggested that it could have been emotionally triggered. Because, you know, I think my dad probably started beating me when I was around

three or four or something like that and you know when you're that age and you have a big man come in your room and and you can't escape and you can't fight back obviously that you can develop some kind of psychosomatic conditions but i think this is what it was maybe so i had that i was allergies and also I was kind of a bit sick, you know, from the allergies. I couldn't be out in the sun as much. And then the Nordic countries, you know, when spring hits in April, May, all the pollen just comes out of nowhere for a few months. And then, you know, September gets cold again.

So it's very intense. And in that period when all the other kids were out playing, I couldn't be part of that. So I think I got a little bit weak from that. Yeah, I wouldn't stay home, paint, listen to music, you know, I played some drums later and kind of entertain myself. And when do you hit that gross spurt and realize you're that dude? When does all that bullying or poking for, when does all that shit stop? Well, it was a gradual experience. Because also, I apologize for interrupting you.

I read, too, that you're, I didn't know how, like, experienced and how what a badass you were in martial arts as well coming up. So you're not just a big menacing figure. You also know how to use this fucking frame. Well, thank you. Well, that's how we started. I was in, I lived in Stockholm, and my dad would beat it. He was beating me. And I, my grades was really bad.

I was skipping school, running away, drinking, smoking, trying to do anything to just. dulled the pain. And I think he realized when I was about 12 or 13 that I started growing. And I don't think he didn't want to get in a fight with a young man or boy. It was a larger person. You couldn't just slap around. So I think he decided at some point to get, just send me off to his parents, my grandparents. Oh, he sent you all. Northern Sweden. Okay. So when I got up there, I didn't have any, he wasn't around. How old were you at this point? Of 13.

Okay. Yeah. He wasn't there. And I made friends with guys who were playing ice hockey and, and, you know, doing sports. And that's when I started studying, getting good grades. And also, I did start doing some judo and then later karate. And then I started growing as well, you know, doing pushups in my room. It was like the classic.

There was a sort of a course you could take. you know in a mail order course like charles atlas kind of you know the what was it called the it was the bully on the of the beach you know similar thing in sweden where you could train at home so i started doing that so it was about 15 i started growing and i did karate and you know my first aim was to defend myself against my dad or beat him up to get him back for everything but by the time I was 17 or so, I, you know, part of martial arts is, you know, there's a certain nonviolent attitude in the back of it. I mean, you're supposed to have respect for everybody and you're not supposed to, it's a non-aggressive sort of sport, you know? You learn to defend yourself, but you're

not supposed to just hit somebody for no reason. Right, right. So eventually I sort of gave up the idea of beating him up and I just pursued it as a sport, as a, as a competitive sport. So dad was just a stepping stone on the way into this shit. So when I was about 17, I started growing really fast, you know, when you're in a movie theater and you get up and you almost pass out because your circuit tour system hasn't kept up. I'm five, ten. I've never had that experience of my life.

I'll tell you. It happened to you at some point with your growth spurt. You stood up and you would get lightheaded? Oh, yeah, for sure. Sure, for sure, yeah. Never. I've never been lightheaded from that. Well, there it comes.

Oh, man. Yeah, so that's kind of how it started. Okay. Then I started lifting some weights to kind of help me in my sports, to help me pursue martial arts. And I eventually, it became kind of part of my life. It still is. And, you know, by the time I was 20, 2021,

I was Swedish champion and British Open champion. And later, I became champion on Australia, European heavyweight champion. So I won a lot of tournaments. And that was the first time I kind of had a little bit of fame. Like I felt it. Yeah. I mean, that's not just local. You're winning on different continents.

Yeah. With people kind of, I mean, you're not a movie star, but you're, you feel special. And obviously, my dad, when he beat me, he always said that I was useless and you're never going to be anything. and, you know, very, very, you know, how you bring up a kid to feel good about himself. Now, he always told me like I was useless. So basically, I had that going against me all the time. And it's quite powerful when you're a young kid, you know, because you always love your parents no matter what they do.

So you kind of, you're torn between the love for them and then the fact that they're, abusing you in some way and I think it's it's tough for young developing mind to sort of get you know to get around that to deal with that you you know you develop traumas and PTSD and things like I've dealt with for many many years afterwards yeah it's a it's a really tough thing because first you have to understand and accept what is happening to you yeah then there's two kinds of people there's the uses of the world who take that and use it as fuel to push us forward. Other

people, they dive into drugs or whatever to cope and you know, they get lost. So it's a really complicated thing because first you got to get your mind around it and then you got to figure out how to use that to move forward. And you've done that.

You know, your dad saying your use, my mother used to say the same thing to me and I was just something in me always knew. I wasn't. I don't, this, no. What's being said to me right now is hate and anger, something in me always knew it wasn't true. I didn't believe that. I didn't believe what this person was saying. Thank God. You know, thank God. You didn't believe it. You're not sitting here right now. You're probably not even alive. No, I wouldn't have

been alive. The thing is you, you internalize it still internalize it on some level. So even if you kind of know they're wrong, but it does have some impact. And I think, you know, Like my therapist told me much later, if you're a soldier in Iraq and you're in a foxhole, you're being shot at every day and you may think tomorrow is my last day because my buddy got shot yesterday and then you survive tomorrow and then the next day is the same thing. Well, at night you go to bed thinking the same thing. But while you're there and the adrenaline is pumping and you got your 60 machine gone and you're like fighting everybody off and there's no time to think.

think about it. But when you get back stateside, and now you're supposed to be a normal civilian, and there is no threat anymore, and there are no buddies anymore, and that's when that older his feelings come back up and the damage that was done, because you're not in a safe environment. When does a man like yourself, a strong man, you're also from a different generation, allow yourself to say, I need help, I need therapy, let me talk to somebody, because we're not, You're a little older than me, and I'm not even from the generation. I'm from the walk it off generations. You got a problem?

Fucking walk it off. You know what I mean? When do you hit that point? I think it started, well, first I did martial arts to get it out of my system to express it physically, but I didn't really know what was going on. And then I did acting because when I took my first acting class, I was able to be emotional. to cry to let my emotions go and feel vulnerable and express that so that was you know that was liberating but it's like somebody said you're hijacking your trauma to be a good fighter

or to be a good actor it doesn't mean that when you're when you're in the movie's over you still don't have those feelings as you know we've seen many people in the show business they you know, they end up hurting themselves or, you know, their lives could be very miserable, even though they're very talented. So then what happened was I got divorced just as much later when I was in my 50s. I was divorced. I got divorced when I had two kids. It was very, very traumatic for me.

Part of the reason for the divorce was because I was drinking too much. I was partying. I was staying out late. I wasn't a good dad in some way. you know i was traveling doing movies now granted my wife and kids you know they lived a very good life i mean financially and so forth but i wasn't really available for them so the marriage fell apart and then i met this other woman and um i didn't want to ruin that one too and then i started thinking well you know i was actually at that point in my life i was i went on some benders were

I wasn't sure if I was going to make it back alive, you know, to my family. And I, after that, I realized that I'm going to need some help. So I started meditating first, actually, started meditating. And then through that, through somebody there, I, you know, that I got introduced to a therapist. And the guy, interestingly enough, was he also had a problem with his dad when he was younger. get close to him. And he was like a competitive marksman shooter. So he was kind of a bit of a macho guy and he'd kind of gone that direction. So he had really understood me, you know. So he started kind of digging into what happened to me. And through those sessions with him over,

let's say, six, seven year period, I finally, it's like somebody explained, it's like you have a lump of ice in your chest and it kind of slowly melts and finally you're not reacting from that otherwise you do making all the you're you're reacting to things in your life and making decisions but you're not making the decisions there's other things making decisions and you're like what the fuck am i doing you know this is not very smart and then i mean another bad decision and when that goes away you can kind of you're free to kind of live your life the way you should have done from the beginning. And that's what happened to me. Good for you, though. You didn't start therapy until your 50s. No. I started like, yeah, probably when I was about, yeah, I was in my 50s,

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Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash honeydew. That's better, h-E-L-P dot com slash honeydew. Now, let's get back to the do. Let's talk about the cancer because obviously cancer doesn't give a fuck about your. your financial status, your health, nothing. No. So you're, you know, you're fucking Dolph Lunger and you're that dude. And then you get diagnosed with cancer.

How does that affect you? It's brutal. I mean, everybody, cancer is like one of the worst words that people, anybody can hear. If you hear the word cancer, it's like, is that, did you feel that way when you heard the word? Yeah. I was in, I was actually in Sweden. And I was, 10 years ago, I was in Sweden and I was doing this gumbo race. You know, I was going to be in a Ferrari with my youngest daughter driving from Stockholm

through Norway, Europe, fly to San Francisco, go to L.A. and go to end up in Vegas. Oh, it's a whole little like cannonball run type thing. Yeah, and they do it over 5,000 miles in seven days. Okay. So, you know, I was very excited about it. Then I'd done some martial arts training, and I had, and I saw some blood in my urine. So I was like, I'd had it before, like from a punch or something. It can't happen, you know.

So I did a scan, and the guy said, you know, we found a tumor on your kidney. And it could be cancer, you know. And then I have to get on the race, do the next day. And as I was sitting in that damn car, of course, I didn't tell my daughter. And I was just thinking about my dad. You're just sitting in the car. Yeah, I know. Stuck in the car.

Stuck in there. I know. It was like a perfect storm. Just what you thought is like a fucking torture. Oh, you four. Torture chamber. It was like a torture chamber. It's like, hey, here's this.

Go think about that while you're stuck. Here's something for you to think about. Basically, your funeral, your state planning while everybody was partying around me. and getting drunk and I know it was fucking it was to work it was terrible it was terrible I was a wreck and I get back to L.A. Five days that too? Holy shit, not one day.

You got a whole week basically of just thinking of that. Oh, man. So I flew back to L.A. And I got, you know, I saw a surgeon at Cedars and I had surgery And they said, oh, we got it. You know, we removed it. And now you're going to have to do tests, scans for five years. And I did them.

And, you know, I still knew. I didn't feel 100%, but I tried to tell myself everything was fine. What can I ask you, what are you feeling that's off? You know what I'm saying? Like, what was going on where you're like, I don't know. I still, something's different. What was happening was I still wasn't treating. I wasn't really.

I wasn't really that good to myself. I was abusing myself. Even still, you were drinking with the can't. I was training too hard. I was not sleeping enough. I mean, I was doing crazy stunts. I was almost like I was trying to prove to myself. You know, now I'm well.

So now I'm going to go twice as hard. Spar twice, but even younger guys. And I just, I was pushing my body. So I was taking so steroids as well. Were you tired all the time? No. No, I was fucking jacked all the time up. But on a deep level, kind of exhausted.

Because I don't know if you've been there, but if you're, you know, there are a lot of guys who go to the gym and push themselves. And it's, but it's like building a house on shaky ground, you know, because you're not really calm, you're not stable emotionally, your body is not really happy, you're just pushing it, and that could be very dangerous, I think, and I think I did some of that. So whether that had anything to do with it, I don't know, but, you know, during COVID and I met my current wife, I was in Sweden again, just by coincidence, and then they found some more tumors, and that's when it started. That was the bigger bowel started there.

So what do they tell you then that you're doing chemo? What do you have to do for this? Well, first day, when I get removed those tumors, they did. So now you have a second surgery. They took a piece of the kidney, just a small piece of that out. Second surgery, I was still pretty, I was still pretty strong, went hiking after a few weeks, lifting weights. I felt pretty good, you know. And I was directing a movie in Alabama. Then the doctor calls and says, we missed something on one of your scans. You know, there's another tumor in your liver.

I was like, okay. And they said, we could take that out. But then when I get back to LA, it gotten too big. They couldn't take it out. So now. Can I ask how long from them saying, hey, we missed it. We'll take it out when you get back to you getting back. Yeah, three months.

Damn, and it got that big that they couldn't even do surgery. Yeah. And that's, yeah. And the big shock. is about to come. So they basically said, okay, we cannot take it out. We need to do systemic therapy, which is immunotherapy you get, you go in once a week and they give you, they give you immunone enhancing drugs that helps your immune system to fight off the cancer. But I took that and they have, you know, the side effects got pretty bad. In a few months, I started losing weight.

You know, you get very, you get sourced in your hands and feet and your mouth. You can only eat, you can't eat cold food or hot food. You have to eat like. Is that right? I never knew that. Why? Soft food. Your mouth gets very sensitive.

Oh. Yeah. So you just got to have like basically like a room temperature sandwich? No, not even a sandwich. It's too rough to bite two. Oh, wow. Yeah, like banana like. Oh, so mushy stuff.

Yeah, like apples sauce and like home. Room temperature apples. Yeah. Like a kid. Like a kid. Yeah, I know. No. And this is this is 2021. So I'm still kind of working out and, you know, nobody knows about it. And then it gets worse. So I started losing weight like lost about 20 pounds, you know, when people start noticing it. So they cut back on the drugs at that point. And I know our oncologist wasn't a very nice guy. He wasn't easy to, he wasn't very open. Like, Emma, my wife asked a bunch of questions, but he wouldn't really answer. And you got the feeling that the prognosis wasn't very good, but he didn't say anything. And then we went to London, and I was working on expendables for and also Aquaman, the secret. That's right, Aquaman.

Yeah, because I was in the first one in Australia, which I shot 2018. So we had a doctor in London, and he kind of set me down and said, you know, get to have a man-to-man talk here. This is really serious, you know. You know, these drugs aren't working, and there's one more drug you can take, and, and, and, and Emma found out too. So now we're kind of both depressed and shy. Why are they not telling you this in the States? Yeah. They know it.

Yeah. Why are they not wanting to verbally tell you this? Yeah, because the guy I was with was not very, he wasn't a good doctor. You know, he was, he had a certain style of like, like the old school doctors who don't tell the patients everything. They don't communicate. You know, when you're a kid, like you go to, even like a school teacher, they wouldn't like, they didn't think you were worth to tell the truth, right? So he didn't tell us the truth. The guy in London was really cool.

I still friends with that guy. He basically told us this is kind of serious. We have one more drug you can take. And then I called him after work one day. Can I ask you again? Sorry, one more drug, and if that doesn't work? Well, then there is no hope. Damn. So you're hitting your last hope at this point.

Yeah. I started getting there. And then I called him one day after work after the movie set. And it was tough because I'm in this three-layer costume, which is like a, there's like a low, this is an aquaman. There's like a layer layer that has like some extra muscles on it. Then there's another outer layer of like kind of plastic like it looks like scales, you know, like a fish kind of. I'm playing this king and it's like a green, shiny costume. And on top of that, there's armor, right?

Gold and armor. So I'm in this freaking costume with fins on my feet. You can hardly walk delivering all this dialogue. I'm the king, right? So have all the freaking dialogue. I'm going to go watch it again. Nicole Kidman and, you know, and of course, Jason and Moe. I'm in there trying to make the shit, make sense.

And then, you know, the drugs makes you want to go to the bathroom a lot. Oh, is that really? Now, to go to the bathroom in that suit. Oh, Beth. You can't. You have to have two people to get it off you to go. So I'm in there like while they're doing like 50 takes, James Swan, the director of like 40 and 50 takes and stuff, right?

And like, you know, basically having to hold it back, you know. And that was tough. I mean, it was a tough experience. Nobody knew about it. I was just about to ask you. You still hadn't told anyone yet? No, I told anybody. And then they were shooting the dock at this point, too.

And, oh, yeah, what happened was I gave the guy a call the doctor. I have to work one day because I didn't want Emma to be there. And I told him, you know, just man to man. What's the situation here? How long do you think I have left? And he said, maybe three years. And I said, that's it. And he says, yeah, sorry, but, you know, you shouldn't be doing this movie.

You should be. you know, you should be hanging out with your family. But I heard in his voice that maybe it was more like one year or something like that. So now I'm in this kind of a shock state finishing this movie. How much more do you have to go when you hear this? By two months. Holy shit. So.

Two months on, you got a 36 month a sentence. Yeah. But you think it's 12. I think it's 12. So you got 10 left when you're done with this movie if things don't. turn out. So I got some there. And I'm like, you know, I told a few people in my, I had told my manager, I told a good friend of mine. His name is Larry Witzer, who was my business manager at the time. And, you know, he played in a golf tournament with a guy from UCLA, a doctor. And he

had said, you know, my friend is kind of sick in kidney cancer and a friend of mine. And is there anybody you could recommend? So for second opinion. And this guy recommended his female doctor at UCLA and so I had to get all my charts all that scans and everything together and email it to her all I'm in London I'm up at night doing this shit and I'm thinking it's a waste of time you know but I'm doing it anyway because I'm supposed to have the best guy here already except they didn't call me once in like four months nobody had checked on me or anything the guy the other guy in the States so I was a little bit concerned a little upset about that So I called this other doctor.

I sent her all the information. She's a female doctor from Greece originally, but went to Harvard. Her husband is another Harvard guy. And they have a cancer research company. Or he does, the husband. Anyway, she's usually. And, you know, and we spent that Christmas to gather me, my wife, at her parents in Norway. She's from Norway.

And it was like she said later, where. she had thought she told me later that was we our last Christmas together and I kind of felt the same way but nobody said anything about it we couldn't even talk about it so much because she's a bit younger quite a bit younger than me and then I went to see this doctor back in LA at UCLA and it was like on a Monday and I had like an appointment on Tuesday with or the other same day with that other guy so I had to cancel the appointment I said you know I can't make it on Monday and they got really upset, oh, you know, how much time we spent working you in? And I'm like, hey, I've been gone for four months.

You haven't called me once and I'm fucking dying here and you're complaining to me about your appointment schedule. Hang on a minute. Get your fucking head out of your ass. And get your head out of your ass and get your, you know, this is a page. It's your priority stretch. It's crazy. This is how they're talking to someone who's on limited time.

Yeah. also you know what the fuck where where's your compassion they never even said that they haven't you said right yeah you know it because you're going on better doctor already so i went i went into the other doctor you know we met her and she was really nice and she said you know she said you know as soon as i got these results from you she hadn't even met me yet she said there was something that isn't right about this case so she'd gone back and she'd looked at the biopses that they had it at the other hospital and she said something isn't right so we'll do another biopsy which we did and um and she said i think you've been misdiagnosed and i was like we were just

looking at each other like and then we came back if you like a week later and um she said i was right you were misdiagnosed you don't have a class of kidney cancer you have an other and other mutation. That's very unusual, but it was obvious in the biopsies that you had in this mutation. And they're obvious, you saw it right away. And it was there in the, because I awarded biopsies from back in 2015, and they were also showed the same thing. They just hadn't looked at it properly. So there was a mutation that there, she said there were five drugs against this that have been used for like 30 years. And we're going to put you on one of them.

So she put me on one of the drugs. I immediately got rid of the other doctors. In 20 minutes, I had five new doctors at UCLA. They put me on that drug. And within like two weeks, the tumor started shrinking. Really? Yeah. And within, then I did another movie.

And within seven months, they were 90% gone. And you're feeling okay during this time enough to do another film? I know that's hard-ass work on a body. Yeah, I know I did it because... Hours suck and, you know. I wanted to like, you know... Keep your mind off of it. So basically, I went through that treatment and this is 2022.

In 2023, they removed all those dead tumors with cryoblation. They freeze them out. And in 2020, I went through another... I did another film in South Africa. And then I got sick from one of those cryoblations. By this time, I'm cancer-free, but I got sick from the side effect. I had an abscess in my liver and I was really sick for about six months. Damn.

I had, I was in antibiotics, intravenous antibiotics for six months. And then I, 2024, beginning of 2024, everything. was gone and I started training again and since then I've been you know they call nED no evidence of disease and how long do you have to go before they say hey because I think my friend's mom had breast cancer and she was a seven year window maybe of cancer free and then you're not you're you're you're in better you're in good shape well you know I have a new therapist it's called survivorship therapy and you know there's one thing that is certain if you're a human being, only one thing is certain is that you're going to die.

You, me, the people outside, it's just a matter of when, right? So some of us will die from cancer, some will get hit by a bus, who knows. But the thing is, the difference is when you've had cancer. Some will die in the ring getting killed by a Russian fighter. Some will go to war. some will be a hundred years old and you know but thank God listen here's the other thing

so the thing is there's nothing like to beat cancer it's not really they don't you don't think of it that way you think of it as you know um you know I could die from cancer

I could die for something else but the difference is that we all it's like you say everybody can joke say well you know we can all get hit by bus tomorrow but if you've had cancer you have seen the bus you know the number of the bus it's a little different but basically for me right now you know i'm i can train i'm almost as strong as i was before wow and you're how old 67 and you're cancer free cancer free and uh you know

Go for you. And I have something to share with people and I try to help other people. I was going to ask. Yeah, you do. I'm going through a lot of that, especially with a doc, I have other friends that I'm, just like one guy now who I, you know, try to support him. You know, he's in his three years after me, you know, I'm two years ahead of him, you know. And I talk to him, trying to make it feel better, try to help him with his, you know,

to explore different second opinions and so forth. And that's where I'm at right now. Good for you, man. I'm very happy for you. Yeah. Also, good for you for not taking no for an answer. Like, I say all the time on this show. You know what they call the guy who finishes last in med school?

Doctor. Yeah. You had a shitty one. You had a shitty one. He's a doctor. He's a doctor. But he's not a fucking good one. Yeah, you're right.

There's a lot of those out there. Call the plumber over. Yeah. I say all the time to you've got to be your own advocate. You know. You know what's going. going on inside you. Just because this professional saying you're wrong doesn't mean you're wrong.

No. It does not. So good for you. Because it's, if you don't go find this lady. No, I would have been dead. You're done. All because, all because of a misdiagnosis. Somebody.

And then you think how many people have that, has that happened to? Yeah. That's what I'm thinking too. A lot of people. Yeah, I'll bet. And hopefully the second opinion, which is it's difficult because you're, you're in somebody's under somebody's care and you don't want to upset them. You don't want to make them mad at you.

You're also not a doctor. And I don't want you to think I'm telling you how to do your job here, but, yeah. And it's a very tough, it's a tough situation for the patient, you know, because, you know, it's very hard to be an advocate sometimes. I was lucky. I was, you know, for me, was just lucky that guy played a golf with somebody. And this other doctor was an extraordinary, this woman, Alexandra is her name. She was an extraordinary individual who was a very, very, very. smart and she's she does just take things at face value she really looks at it like a real scientist

you know i mean there was live physicists and then there was einstein right same education and i you know you just had but here's the thing too that lady did her i'm not saying she's smarter or anything she just did her job better you said they had the same yeah set of um scans yeah from 2015 same same The same information she did. And right away, she's like, oh, no, no, no, no. Just looking at all this, it's this. This guy probably didn't fucking know it all. Didn't even look at your past.

Yeah. It's like they say, you know, great. What's his name? Let's out of him right now. I'm just kidding. They said, what is it? A good doctor treats the disease and a great doctor treats the patients. That's right.

Yeah. That's right. So it's like, you know, everybody's different. Cancer survivor, Dolph Longer, hell yeah. How's that feel? Feels good, man. I mean, it changed my life. I mean, I think, and the one thing I talked to my therapist about, my survivorship therapist, is like, if cancer had not come into my life, I may have killed myself doing something else.

Just being reckless. Being reckless, you know, physically abusing myself, steroids and training or something. And because I was, I had this sort of death wish kind of attitude from the beginning. That's why I was a good fighter and, you know, you know, good at doing crazy stunts and stuff like that. I mean, you have to have a little wild hair in there somewhere. Yeah. You know, but no, if it wasn't for cancer, maybe I would have been dead anyway. So it saved my life in a strange way.

That's great to hear also. Yeah. Good for you for having that outlook. I hear you on that. do, yeah. Sometimes you look back at some of the worst things. You're like, if that doesn't happen, I'm not here. Yeah. Yeah, go for you. I think so. Thanks, man. No. I wanted to ask you a couple more questions. So I read a story. We'll shift gears go a little lighter here. Sure, yeah. I don't know if this is like. Sorry about this cancer. No, this is what the show is. Do not apologize for your cancer. You have some protein here. What year was it here? See, May 2009 is a story I read. mask burglars break into your home you're not there yeah they rob your home is your wife at the time there uh yes she's home so it's a home invasion and they sounds like saw family photos around

the house like oh shit this is dolf lunger's house and they just got the fuck out of there is that accurate a little bit like that yeah more or less yeah they gave back some watches I think it's, no, you got shit back? Yeah. I just assumed they stopped halfway through and hauled ass. I didn't know you got shit back. That's definitely what happened. Well, lucky I wasn't there or, you know, would have been ugly.

That's fucking crazy, dude. I didn't know you got shit back. That's definitely, oh, it's too good, man. That's too good. All right, here's something I really want to ask. You're, you're such an icon. You're, you know, is your first big, your first big breaks to Russian and Rocky? Yeah.

I had a small break before that in the Bond movie with Roger Moore. That's right. You were in his last one. He was his last one, I think, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You took a kill. But that was just a walk-on part because my girlfriend at the time, Grace Jones was in it. Yeah, Rocky was my first break.

It was a great role. obviously well-written, Stallone. And you're not even Russian. No. You're Swedish. But, you know, I looked at the part. And I read that you auditioned.

They passed first, but there were, I don't know, again, the internet's wrong. About 5,000? Is that about accurate? Yeah, I think so. That's what Sly told me. You beat out 5,000 guys. He was looking for a lot of, I mean, the Rocky series was very successful. And Rocky 3 was a film I saw when I was fighting in Australia.

I remember I was listening to Eye of the Tiger, and little did I know I was going to be in the next one, crazy enough, but only a few years later. But he was, yeah, he was looking at a lot of different people, fighters and Russians, non-Russians. What made him come back to you after passing the first time? What happened was he didn't see me the first time. He was a casting agent in New York. Gotcha. And then he got my photo through his buddy, John Hertzfeld, who's a director of front of his, got my photo. And then I got called in.

I met him Paramount Studios. He had Long Hairie. He was going to do Ramble 2. He was all tan. And I got starstruck, you know, and he told me, I got to fuck those guys up for this role. And, you know, and you got to put on some weight, you know. So, like, it was a bit skinny. My upper body was.

Were you a fighter then? It was a fighter. Were you a boxer, I guess? I was a martial arts champ who was trying to be boxer in New York. So I was training... Oh, so you were already trying to box a bit. Yeah. Okay.

I was training at Glees' Gym with Jerry Cooney and back in those days. And then I had to practice some monologue and then I had to do a screen test later that year. And, you know, I was mean two Russian guys left. But they were doing it like a Russia, Mr. T. I will break you. I will crush you. Oh, yeah. You know, and I decided to just play it very cool internal.

And with my acting coach in New York, he was very smart. You said, you know, you don't have to do anything. You're, you know, the look is so strong. You just stand there. That's a great fucking call. I must break you. Just keep it internal, you know, so. That's a great call.

Yeah. And just, just, just calm psycho. Yeah. Yeah. I know. That's way better. Yeah. It's more menacing and terrifying that some jackass bouncing around the ring in front of me.

Yeah. It is, man. Like, holy fuck. Who's this guy? Yeah, I know. I know. So I wanted to ask you because I mentioned before we recorded, this is 85. Yeah. Mikhail Gorbachev now is in power in Russia.

We're trying to get along with the Russians a little bit here, but there's still a lot of the. And I know the message at the end is we all can change is the whole thing. But after you do that role, are you getting the death threats? Are you getting hatred? What is happening to you after that? Like from the people, not the industry, the people in the streets. People in the street. It was mixed.

I mean, one way I sort of portrayed as Frankenstein's monster and Frankenstein is the Soviet state. And the monster is kind of, you feel sorry for the monster the way the story went. So I think some people, especially the young ladies, kind of liked my character. because he was, like, kind of unreal-looking, you know, and very fit. And there was a little bit of grumbling on the, you know, up in certain African-American areas, you know, up north of 120th Street. Why, did you kill Apollo, Cray? Yeah, killed Apollo, man.

What did you kill Apollo for? Yeah, there's a bit of that. You're getting out when you're out of the street. Now I get it once in a while, but I dig what happened while. Why did you kill Apollo? Follow, man. They're doing that shit to you. But I mean, I think, you know, most people, one, know it's a movie and two, you know, they kind of

they respect great athletes. So it was like, like in the first picture, Paul McCreed was a bit of a dick, right? Yeah, arrogant, but, you know, people were arrogant, but, you know, people still looked up to him because he was a world champ and he, you know, he did beat Rocky in the first one. I mean, Rocky was the real emotional. hero second one you know same thing again uh but this time rocky wins but you still look up to apollo and the third one he become they become friends and in our case you know we're not friends you lose mickey you lose mickey yeah lose mickey but you know there's a big loss there but apollo

comes back and helps rocky and then you know in my movie rocky four at the end the way it's kind of, the sort of sub-takes at the end is that, you know, we should all come together, and there were two guys, you know, not $20 million, whatever he says, you know. So, and I'm kind of there looking all beat up, and you feel a little sorry for me with my Bridget Nielsen and my wife. And so I think, you know, there was something, a little bit of hate in the beginning, but on the whole, it was pretty good. I mean, I did star in my next picture. You know, I was starring as E-Man.

It was kind of an American hero. Yeah, Masters of the Universe. You know, it's huge. Did you sustain any injuries? I read that you put Stallone in the hospital, something about his heart for nine days. He went in the hospital. He got hitting the body a little hard. From you?

From me, I think. Yeah, for sure. Nobody else hitting him with me. But he told me what to do. So I just did what you said, you know. You know, it'd be hard at all of you. And then he had me too really hard. Yeah.

Do you break any bones? No, I had some injuries. There's no way to not get hit doing something like that. I had a back injury that I still have a little bit left. You know going in, you're going to take some shit. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But I was young, strong. How old were you in that movie?

27, I think. And I was, you know, I had, I was used to fighting, you know, up for real, you know, when you guys really try to knock you out. So for me, it was still, it wasn't, it was really tough, but it wasn't as bad as when you really, when you, when it's real, you know, so. Well, your character's so, you know, well loved in the history of that movie. You came, was a Creed 2? Oh, you're Creed 2? Yeah, you're back and now. We kind of became friends for Rockett to some degree and Michael B. and all that. Yeah, it was, it was fun. It was fun to go back And actually, in the second, on the creed, too, I was able to kind of channel my dad a little bit.

Tell me about that. Well, you know, I have a son in the movie, and I'm kind of torturing him to kind of win back to belt and do what I couldn't do. And, you know, I was able to kind of play my dad to some degree. I mean, even my brother said when he saw the movie, he realized I was acting like our dad. Oh, did he? Yeah. Did you tell him that's who I channeled for that? Yeah, I told them, yeah.

And it was quite powerful for me because it made me realize also, which I already done, but on the deeper level that, you know, like they say, we're victims or victims. What did he go through when he was a little kid? You know, what happened to him, you know? And it was the same with my character, Ivan Drago and Creed 2. Why did, you know, he had gone through so much pain that even the audience, I think, felt a little sore for him so it was almost like my relationship with my son in the movie mirrors my relationship with my dad but in this tape in this version in the movie we end up hugging and i said

i say um you know don't worry about it's okay it's okay uh he lost but i say it's like i say i love you i don't care if you win or lose but when i worked on that character i was working with his coach Larry Moss out of New York is really good. And he did say that if we set the character up, that Ivan Drago in the whole world is the last guy who will throw in the towel, who will never fucking give up. You said if the, and the script at the end of the fight,

when I walk up to the ring and people think, what's he going to do, get in there himself? And then I throw on the towel. It's going to be like, whoa, fuck, you know, this is like powerful. And it was. And then I hugged my son. And I thought that was a great moment, you know.

It's really a lot of people. I could, I was, I remember we shot the scene and I looked over in the audience and the extra some of the girls were crying. Oh, yeah. It was good, you know. This is a, thank you so much for doing this. Thanks, man. Thank you so much. You don't even know.

Last question. Yeah. Advice you would give to 18 year old Dolph Lundgren. 18. I mean, excuse me. That's the first time I've ever messed that up. 16. Why am I saying 18?

16 years old. 16, okay, I would say, I would give him a big hug and say, don't worry. It's all going to be, everything's going to be fine. Don't worry about it. Just be yourself. Don't worry so much. That's great. You're the first person, by the way, to say you would hug yourself.

We were doing this for years. I would. No one's ever first said, I would hug. Yeah, that's a great answer. Yeah, I would. If I yell, throw the damn towel right now, will you say, if he dies, he dies right there? Will you do it? Sure.

Throw the damn towel. If he dies, he dies. Dolf Lundgren, thank you so much. Please promote whatever you'd like again. Your vodka, you've got a documentary, you've got a book at Harper Collins. Tell them everything here. No, you got it. That's it for me.

Where can we get hard cut again? Again, you said, Babmo and Total. Great. And you're in some local restaurants here in LA and Beverly Hills? Yeah, we're in Beverly Hills. All right. At Tao, at Adeo, at Chipriani, at, yeah, budget it for restaurants, and soon to be in the independence, too.

Favorite liquor store. We'll be right there. And your doc and your book, HarperCon. What's the book called? We haven't decided really. okay we have a couple of titles all right the doc's called um dulf unbreakable fuck yeah thank you so much brother it's a real pleasure to have you in here thanks man uh as always ryan sickler on all your social media we'll talk to you all next week

I'm going to be able to be.