The Rich Roll Podcast - Life's A Fight. Don’t Let It Break You: Dolph Lundgren On Trauma, Stardom & Cancer

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

Dolph Lundgren is an actor, martial artist, and chemical engineer, best known as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. This conversation explores the distance between the man on the poster and the boy underneath: the violent childhood, the Fulbright he traded for Manhattan, the delirium of instant fame, the steroids and stunts that followed, a fatal prognosis reversed by a second opinion, and the mirror work that finally took. He offers a quiet rebuke to everything young men are currently being sold about strength. Dolph's still a warrior – but a peaceful warrior. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: WHOOP: Join now and get one month free👉🏼https://www.join.whoop.com/Roll  Squarespace: Use code RichRoll to save 10% off your first order of a website or domain👉🏼https://www.squarespace.com/RichRoll  Go Brewing: Get 50% OFF your first subscription order to Go Brewing's Beer Club👉🏼https://www.gobrewing.com/richroll50  Momentous: Get up to 35% off your first order👉🏼https://www.livemomentous.com/richroll  Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors👉🏼https://www.richroll.com/sponsors  Find out more about Voicing Change Media at https://www.voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He said, yeah, you probably have about three years left, but I can't believe that I was that close to dying. Dahl's Longring, one of Hollywood's best-known action heroes. Up there with the most iconic action stars of the 1980s. There's no one like him. Period. End of story. I wanted to get away from my dad, and he kind of kicked me, and I flew into some hookshelf and hit my head, and I was bleeding. I could hijack this feeling to play an action character. And what if I make it like the ultimate lab creation? I must break you.

It's pretty cute. It turned out to be kidney cancer. This guy says it's over, but what about, let me try this person. I found out later that those were the wrong drugs. I was misdiagnosed. Within four weeks, everything was shrinking. Your job is managed to be in the red, to give more than you were given, to love more than you were loved.

And maybe it came back to me, you know, from the universe. That's why I was given a second chance. You know, I thought I knew who you were. And then getting into your book and learning as much as I could about your life and the high highs and the low lows and this kind of Odysseus-like journey that you've been on. It's really remarkable. And it's so rich in its texture in terms of kind of what you've weathered and endured to really, you know, again, in the spirit of Odysius. to like return home to yourself. You know, it's a very, it's a very human story and it's really a story of trauma and healing fundamentally, you know, this reconciliation between, you know,

Hans, this young child, uh, growing up in a small town, you know, in Sweden, uh, and suffering, you know, uh, suffering the abuse that you suffered, then armoring yourself in, you know, the Drago costume and being this indestructible, you know, action hero who was just impenetrable and this immovable object, right? Stoic to the core, but not impenetrable to, you know, the kind of trauma that was unheeled and that powered you to great heights, but ultimately, you know, our strengths become our Achilles heel and, like, reckoning with that to, you know, really become this integrated human being. Like, it is a hero's journey. The humble beginning. to, you know, stardom, to the low moments, you know, it lends itself to a perfect three-act structure.

Yeah. Slaying of the father. Yeah. Meeting the sorceress. You know, traveling far away lands. Near death experience. There are all these steps on that road that I now have. The sirens.

The sirens. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Studio 54. The sirens. Yeah, it's interesting. It was well thought out by Campbell when he kind of mapped that out because it's true for everybody, but I think some is a little more palpable than for others, I guess. Your greatest role is playing yourself in the movie of your life.

Like this is the movie that needs to be in development. Like reading your book, there were so many, you know, stories that you tell where I could just see it. I mean, when you get this full Bright scholarship to get your PhD in chemical engineering at MIT, and you're pulling up to MIT on a motorcycle in a suit made out of leather and rubber designed by Versace, and you have Grace Jones on the back, and you climb off that motorcycle to go into this storied institution of, you know, geeks and brainiacs. I mean, I just, like, that is the most cinematic thing. Like, I can just see it, like, you know, the contrast of, you know, the collision of these two worlds.

Collisions, yeah, it was an internal collision for me, too, because I wanted to satisfy my dad, and that was his favorite school, MIT, and he was an engineer as well. and I wanted to also kind of deliver on all those years of studying I'd put in, but then I knew on a deep level that I, it wasn't really for me. I had a different destiny, something waiting for me. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that I had to make a decision, because if I had started and kind of focused on the PhD, that would have been, that would have been it then.

I mean, somebody else would have played Ivan Drago. Yeah. A lot of people, well, not a lot, but a certain amount of people could attend MIT and get their Ph.D. And, you know, go work on the space shuttle, which I know you did when you were at Clemson for a period of time. But there's only one guy who's got Grace Jones on the back of his motorcycle at a very specific time in history where culture was popping off in New York City in the way that it was. I have a very romantic relationship and, and, like, yearning. Like, I feel like I was born a little bit too late. Like, I wish that I was, you know, at Studio 54 during that time and, you know,

navigating Warhol's inner circle at the factory and all of these experiences that you've had. I probably would have died if that happened, if that, you know, maybe I was, maybe God spared me that. But I really, like, love hearing those stories of that very special time where, culture was being formed in real time by a certain cast of characters that were kind of haunting, you know, lower Manhattan for a good decade. Yeah, of course, I didn't plan to be part of it. But you're right. I thought about it afterwards as well, how it was New York, Manhattan was not, hadn't turned corporate yet. It was, it was, you know, there was some talented people there,

but it was simpler in one way. Like I was in the West Village, meet packing district right below the 14th Street on the west side. And they had all those kind of disintegrating peers out where, you know, there was all kinds of dating and different activities going on. Prostitution activity.

And then you had the West Side Highway was still up. They tore that down maybe a few years later. But I remember getting up at like five in the morning, I lived on Bank Street, Bank and West, and I would get up to go for a run, and I would run down Washington or Washington Street, I think it was. I went all the way down to the World Trade Center, and I would turn around right by the World Trade Center and run back. And I know that I had to be really careful because you could get like jumped by somebody, you know, in the street there in Tribeca. It was very rough. So I kind of

had kept a good pace up, I remember, through Tribeca. And of course, now Tribeca is, you know, super expensive and gentrified. And the World Trade Center is gone. So, yeah, it is a different city for sure. And you are navigating all that insanity and chaos, sober, essentially. Like, everyone's out of their minds on cocaine, et cetera. And you're at Studio 54, like just a cold stone sober fox. I was, you know, that was the thing that I was wondering why all these people could stay up so late, you know, like, wow, they have such stamina here, you know, at like six in the morning. And they were looking at me like, how was he up? Like, we're sitting across from in a limo. And then, you know, like you said, studio was obviously, I think I ended up in the back room with a rebel and a few of his friends, you know, do,

drugs, but I didn't partake in any of that until much later, actually, then. So after I got famous, but I was always, you know, I went for that run at 5 o'clock, even if I got home at 3. So I was pretty regimented all the way through. Yeah, yeah. The inner athlete, never sleeps. Never, never slept. How long between, okay, I'm in New York and the,

the Rocky 4 situation coming along? I think it came along in 84. So it's a year. I come to New York in 80, right the end of 82, 83, and then about a year later, after having quit MIT and having started acting, I was up for a boxing movie. You know, one of many calls I got, you know, And I was just standing in a line with a bunch of guys and I come to a table and there's a woman sitting there with a pad. And she's like, I guess my name was there.

And she said, you know, Hans Longgren, I told you. And I was like, six, five. And she's like, too tall next. And I was like, oh, shit. You know, I looked behind her and there's a handwritten sign, Rocky Roman numeral four. And I was like, oh, shit, a Rocky movie. It's like, I love the Rocky movies. I'd actually listen to Rocky 3 to Eye of the Tiger when I was getting ready to fight in Australia,

only a year and a year earlier. So I then, through my acting coach, managed to, he set up at dinner with this guy, John Hertzfeld, who was a friend of Stallones. And John immediately said, you know, you're the guy Slice's been looking for. And I said, well, I was there, but they turned me down. He's like, would you have any photos of yourself? and I said, well, I got something, but it's down in the village. And he says, well, I can get it.

So I got on my bike and a motorcycle. I went down and got this one 8 by 10. And that's the one slight eventually got hold of six months later when I thought it was all, you know, nothing was going to come out of it. I was in England doing the movie, the Bond picture. And then I got the call back. And I went to see Stallone. and at it was at Paramounts because I remember coming in the taxi

and from the airport and you know you see the Hollywood sign behind the studio and I was like, well, okay and I was going to see Sebastian Stallone and obviously he came out, he was all tan, long hair and I was starstruck like, oh shit, you know? And he's like, I got 5,000 guys up for this role. I'm like, okay.

And you know, he had all these binders around his office because it was before, you know, digital. And he took a look at me, and I know later he told me that he had this idea of this kind of Russian bear, like this hairy monster. And then so it didn't work. But he said later when he looked at me and he started thinking, wait a second, what if I make it like the ultimate lab creation, ultimate human being versus who is like a perfect specimen versus Rocky who is like the imperfect. you know, specimen, American, you know.

The Russian science experiment. Yeah. So he came up. Chemically engineered. Chemical engineered. He came up with that. He said later when I was in his office and then I had to audition, I had to memorize a monologue and you said you got to put on some weight because I was a bit skinny

because I was doing a lot of running. You know, it's like I totally 5 in the morning. I was running. And, you know, you can't really get really jacked. So I had to do that. But yeah, that's how we started. And so I trained for six months. All right, but hold on.

Let me interrupt because there's so much here. I mean, there's a couple lessons that come from, that come out of that story. The first of which is there's always a third door. Like the casting director had already nixed you, right? And, you know, there's this process of figuring out an Enveron between Herzfeld and your acting coach and figuring out how to get to Stallone. and like this conviction like no actually this guy's right you know just because this casting director said you're too tall like you really need to reevaluate this and getting it to stalone and having stilone like rewire his thinking around you know what this character uh you know could be you know changing his vision for it um and then in the audition you talk about approaching it uh with this stillness like this immobility like this idea that you learned in your study of acting, that the power is in like the non-reaction.

And the other people who were auditioning were, you know, kind of overacting or whatever. And by you just being still, that ends up being what cinches it because there's something menacing about that, the quietness of it. Yes. So there are two parts of the character, obviously.

One, which I already had, which was he was a fighter. So I was already a European kickboxing or karate champion so I could move really well. Let's say for a big white guy, I was really had, you know, good coordination and so forth. So Stallone obviously kind of knew that. Well, he can read.

He could see that because it's hard to teach someone how to fight. It's for them to look right, you know, it's difficult. And the second part, then, of course, who was his character. And Warren was very, very perceptive, Warren Roberts and my coach, because he studied the other guys, you know, Apollo Creed, Mr. T,

and everybody's very loud. Oh, I'm going to kill you. I'm going to, you know, you're dead meat. Everything was loud and kind of aggressive. So he said, you know, and he had studied with Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe in an actor's studio back in the day. And he did say that Brando Heather Sting

when he said, you know, just because the director says action doesn't mean you have to do anything. That's pretty good. Yeah, it doesn't mean you have to do anything. Because he's famous for, which I read much later, that he would, when the director said action, he would, you know, he really knew his talent because he would just walk off stage, off the set.

start talking to one of the grips or something, until he felt like he was relaxed. Then he would come in and deliver the dialogues. He was very clever, right? I mean, obviously, the best ever. So Warren said, you know, you're so powerful that, you know, some of these Russian officers, they have a stoic kind of chin up, you know, hero of the Soviet Union kind of.

So if you kind of just stand there and deliver the dialogue and play the internal monologue, of the Soviet state has forced me. They took me when I was a kid away from my parents. They made me a fighter. I don't want to do this, but I have to do it. I'm forced to say these words. If all that is interior, it's internal,

and you just say the line, you know. If you say the line, they're very still, it has a lot of, carries a lot of power. So obviously I trusted him. and I went to the audition and had two other Russian guys who were also up for it

and they were saying, I will kill you, I will break you and half. But I played it very internal. And yeah, and it was powerful, I think, and people, you know. I think I've seen that once,

audition. I saw part of that. They used that speech for the teaser trailer that came out later. When I just stand there and say, you know, my name is Dharago.

I'm a fighter from the Soviet Union, blah, blah, blah. And yeah, so I got the rule. Well, let's take it back to the beginning. I want to hear a little bit about your upbringing in Sweden because I think it would surprise a lot of people. Yeah. My upbringing, well, I was brought up in an upper middle class home. My dad was an engineer.

He was an army officer, good-looking, tall guy. My mom was kind of pretty. She was a language teacher. But she had been that, and now she was a housewife. I had three siblings. My dad had another son from an early marriage. And I think that marriage had ended because I think he beat his first wife. And the first time he hit her, I think she took the kid and split.

This is in the would be in the 40s, early 50s. So when I was born, you know, I think I heard from my mom, I think on their honeymoon, this is before I was born, they were in Scotland. And they took a tour in Scotland,

and this is 1955. So 10 years after World War II. And one little anecdote was that they they couldn't get service anywhere, you know, like they went to restaurants and he would just sit there for an hour. And then finally, some woman came up and said, we don't serve Germans here. And then, of course, they were, you know, sweeter. So they had to explain that. But I think something happened on the trip and he didn't talk to my mom for a week.

And that was on their honeymoon. So I think from then he was kind of abusive towards her. And I think he hit me the first time. I was probably around three or so. I was in front of the television. He got it in his way and he kind of kicked me. And I flew into some bookshelf and hit my head. And I was bleeding.

My mom's like screaming. And then, of course, it is kept going. So there was nowhere to go as a kid. There were no hotlines in the 60s. My dad worked for the government. you had a kind of a good position in the office of budget and management. Yeah, so I kind of got used to this physical abuse that later would serve me well, you know, but, you know, when I was a kid, obviously, it's, I've learned later, you know,

you're a little boy and you have a big guy, my size, come in and beat you up. It's like a near-death experience, they say. So you get that PTSD of living in, and, um, under kind of, let's say, physically, you know, insecure circumstances for a long time, like a soldier. Yeah, there was no calling 911 back then. It was just figuring out how you're going to develop some survival strategies for this. Yeah. I mean, your descriptions of these incidents in the book are, you know, they're hard to read.

Like, it's intense. it was not, you know, minor abuse. Like, and there's verbal abuse and he's telling you you're a loser and like, there's just all kinds of shit going on. Yeah. And this resentment also that begins to breed towards your mother because she's supposed to protect you. And, you know, she's, she's sort of, you know, in her, you know, having her own relationship

with how she's trying to survive all of this at the same time. Extremely difficult. But, and your brain is still wiring, right? And you're trying to figure out. like how am I going to just get through the day? And you talk about developing this freeze response to all of this. We all know about like fight or flight, but there's a third way to interact with a traumatic, chaotic scenario.

Yes, you're right. I learned about that much later that, you know, in nature, there is fight or flight. Say if you're a gazelle and you're in Africa and you're being chased by lioners, You know, you can fight back. Well, you can't do that if you're a gazelle because the lion's going to kill you. So you go for flight. But sometimes you'll see in a video,

once the gazelle is taken by the line, it stops fighting. It's called freeze. And you kind of go dead. And it's sort of all your emotions disappear. And I guess in nature, either it could be a way to think, for the predator to think, your dad so they stop, you know, like a bear, for instance, play dead. But it could also be

to avoid the pain because that way, you know, you're going to die anyway. Life's going to eat you. So you might as well, you know, calm down a little bit before it's over. I guess it's in there somewhere. Humans have the same. People, you know, soldiers as well, sometimes, you know, you can fight, flight, but people freeze up too. like in a gunfight. Yeah, it's a disassociation. You hear this with rape victims also like they leave their body. You know, it's the only way that they can like kind of manage what's happening to them.

In your case, like this ability to separate mind and body and disassociate and freeze ends up becoming a very powerful strategy when you become a martial artist and when you're doing your own stunts and you become this guy who can just suffer pain at will, right? And this is obviously powering you, you know, through stardom and all these other experiences. And it's just interesting how our unconscious response to trauma become strengths. And, you know, I'm sure on a conscious level, you're like, oh, this is what separates me from everybody. This is how I'm going to become special and distinguish myself. And it's only later in life where it catches up to you and you realize like this superpower that I have is actually an Achilles heel that is like actually undoing. me. Yeah, the same trauma that I can use to, I could hijack this feeling to be a better fighter, to play an action character to, if I do an emotional scene and a movie, but that same,

that same trauma can also make me, you know, drink, do drugs, you know, decide to go and spar with 10 people maybe when I haven't slept all night because I'm not going to say no and I'll decide to do that stunt myself because I feel like I

I gotta do something. I'm antsy. I got to fuck it. I don't care. I'll jump off the bus or I'll jump from the motorcycle to the truck. I don't care. And so obviously it's or it can ruin a marriage for instance quite easily. And that's

I've been to all those things. Yeah, yeah. There's an ego armoring piece to it as well. Like, I can go to Studio 54 all night and still go running at 5 o'clock in the morning. And not only am I going to, you know, be the, you know, kind of ultimate warrior in this movie, I'm actually going to do all the stunts also, you know, like on top of that, which is empowering also, but, you know, is kind of, you know, can be this megalomania that is going to spoil your relationships and, you know, kind of...

And your body. And, and destroy your body and the like, yeah. Part of it is the trauma and part of it is some kind of male, I don't know, testosterone, bravado, trying to prove something, trying to prove my dad that he was wrong, you know, a combination of all of those. Yeah. How much of your ambition do you think is related to your relationship with your father, or like this drive that you've had?

Well, I think I had two things. I had the drive from my dad, and then I had some kind of feeling from the beginning that life is very precious and very short. And here I am in this little town in Sweden, and I'm not going to, if I stay here, if I just stay here and do what my dad is done, I'm going to be very unhappy.

This episode is brought to you by Woop. The best gift that I can give the people I love is me at full capacity. And that's what all of this is actually for. It's not for the metrics, the analytics. It's not for the races. It's for the moments. And this insight has changed how I think about what to give them, the people I care about. Because almost everyone I love is carrying something, training goal, a brutal schedule.

and what they, what most of us actually need, isn't another gadget. It's greater awareness. It's clarity, a clear picture of how their sleep, their recovery, and their daily habits are actually landing in their body so they can make better decisions, more informed adjustments. Why? To feel like themselves again. That's precisely what WOOP gives. Quietly, no screen, no nagging for anyone at any fitness level, not just for athletes.

We measure longevity in years. but we measure life in moments. So give somebody more of both. Go to join.wop.com slash roll for one month free of whoop. So years ago, before any of this, I needed a website. So I did what you did back then. I hired a designer. I waited months.

I paid a small fortune and ended up with something I couldn't change a word of without calling them, paying again, waiting again, because it was impossible to do any of this stuff yourself. I think about this all the time, especially when I use Squarespace because it's kind of insane how completely that is flipped. Squarespace is the all-in-one platform for building a beautiful professional website, and you're the one who's driving it. You start with Blueprint, their AI design partner or one of their award-winning templates, and you shape the whole thing yourself with drag and drop. No code, no designer on retainer, no experience required. And it doesn't look DIY, it looks like you meant it.

Squarespace makes claiming your name simple, one fair, all-inclusive price, privacy and security built-in, none of the hidden add-on nonsense. The barrier I paid through the nose to get past, it basically doesn't exist anymore, so there's really no reason to wait. Head to Squarespace.com slash Richroll for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, you use offer code Richroll to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Did you have a premonition that there was a big life waiting for you when you were this kid growing up in Sweden? Or was it more, I just, I need to get out of this environment. You know, I have to go somewhere else or I'm never going to survive. I think it was the latter. Yeah, I just wanted to get out of Sweden.

It was too small for me. I didn't want to be this abused little boy and who haunts, who, you know, felt bad about himself. and, you know, I didn't want to do that. And I wanted to get away from my dad. And I think, you know, I got a scholarship to go to America when I was 18 to study chemistry in Washington, Washington State University. And that's the first time when people, they didn't know me so I could be a different person. And they kind of looked at me totally different, you know. And I think that's what drove me outside of Sweden.

I think it's the fame part or the bigger life which is a slow kind of feeling that kind of grew from karate and then from doing some modeling and then eventually when I met Grace and came to Manhattan. Yeah, there was a lot of synchronicities along the way like right place, right time for you. But even before that, before going to America to study, you know, you're your, your, you're, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, you're, your, your, you're, you're, you're, your, you're, you're, you're, you're. first kind of like initial reaction to this chaotic household was to act out like a normal teenager, you're stealing stuff, you're sniffing glue, you're getting into trouble, you know, pretty standard fair, but significant enough for there to be a bit of an intervention and you end up like at your grandfather's house. And that's really where you start to get sorted out a little bit. You're finding alternative father figures and you're realizing that.

that you actually have all this academic potential and you really begin to get a little bit more serious about the martial arts. And that feels like a really important period in your life, like that set you up for everything that came afterwards. And this notion of father figures and mentors is a recurring themes throughout the book. Yes, I agree.

Yeah, I think my dad had, I suppose you realized that as I was getting older, pretty soon he was going to be in a fight with a young man or a boy who was... You're going to kick his ass pretty soon. You better get him out of here. Yeah, get this kid out of here. He's grown too fast. And I think that was part of it. And the other part was probably that he, maybe on a deep level, knew that it was his, it was his, it was because of him that I was going through all this. Do you think he was consciously aware of that?

I think he was subconsciously. And I think maybe he loved me and wanted to, you know, know, saw that I was going to self-destructive I had stayed maybe because I was, you know, drinking, running away from home, sniffing glue, doing all this stuff that, you know, some of my friends from those days are dead now and never made it. So in one way, he had some compassion, I think, on the low level, on the deep level, except it could have been self-preservation some of it too. He didn't want me to beat him up, but I'm not sure which, but it turned out to be a good thing for me, obviously, it saved my life. Yeah. You find your calling in the classroom and in the dojo, basically. And, you know, like, I learned so much about you. Like, I knew that you

were like an athlete scholar, but I didn't realize, like, oh, you were European champion twice, two years in a row, like 80 and 81, in karate, not only did you graduate with a chemical engineering degree, like you had stinson in America, where you were furthering your studies and then this Fulbright scholarship opportunity. Like, there's a sliding door where you just become this top scientist. It's crazy. It was. Yeah, I think part of that was, I was sort of I wanted to prove my dad wrong, I think, that I wasn't useless. How'd that go? Yeah, well, I got admitted to MIT on a full by scholarship.

Did he give it up for you then? Did he ever get to the point where he could say, you did it, son? Yeah, he did. He did twice. When I won the European championships, he was impressed. By that time, he was probably. He was 50 some years old. He was kind of mellowed out a little bit.

And then I got admitted to MIT. I had a full-blatt scholarship. And, you know, I think he was super impressed. And I think on a deep level, he had had some of these ambitions. He'd studied in Germany, I think, when he was young, but he could never afford to go anywhere. He always wanted to go to America. But I think that I, he felt like I had maybe full-futely. filled some of his ambitions on the, you know how it goes with parents, right?

Yeah. We were friendly. I mean, by that time, there was no animosity at all. You know, I kind of forgiven him because in martial arts also, you know, it's not about, obviously I was, by then I was stronger than him and I, you're not supposed to just be aggressive and beat somebody up for what they did 20 years ago. So I never, I never entered my mind really. He ends up, you know, dying quite tragically. Bipolar, maybe schizophrenic. Oh, yeah. He had tinfoil on the windows.

He ended up staying. And after he divorced my mom, she moved out. He lived in this old house where he had like tinfoil. They divorced. You didn't even know they divorced. No, they didn't even tell us. So we didn't know about it. The kids didn't know.

Because I think what happened was he got, fired from his job, like early retirement, because he blew up on somebody there. And my mom had inherited some money from her mother and her dad. My grandfather on that side, he was an inventor, actually. He had some, invented some radio, various, those big radio gramophones, you know, they used to have in the 50s and 40s. And so she inherited some money. So I think my dad Dad kind of divorced her, got custody of all the assets, and then, you know, kind of moved her side, and I think that's really part of it was financial reason he did that, I think. So all of this was obviously, you know, not very nice for the kids, but especially he was just

unhappy, and he ended up in a mental hospital in London at the end. And I was there. I visited him a few times. This is, you know, when I'd been in the business for almost 20 years. And he was sort of in a different world towards the end. And, but I was told by my therapist that, you know, his type of bipolar, you know, conditions, you can medicate it. And he can, but, you know, he would, he refused to take medication. So, yeah, he died a lonely man.

But, I mean, fortunately, he was a bit, he was in his own world and, well. one way. I think nature mercifully kind of just made him not really understand what was going on. Speaking of mercy, you, through all this work that you've done with therapy and kind of trying to make peace with your upbringing and resolve and heal this trauma. A big piece in that is recognizing that, you know, he was the victim of his own, you know, kind of experience. growing up and his emotional needs weren't met and his frustrations and anger and resentment. You know, he didn't have the outlets for help and healing that you've had. And so he's acting out on those impulses and you're on the receiving end of that. Hurt people, hurt people, as they

often say. And you found a way to internalize whatever pain you were experiencing and channel it in productive ways. Like you can hurt people on screen and it's not. not really hurting people. Well, kind of. We're going to get to that. And that is the kind of portal to forgiveness and mercy, because when you understand like, oh, he was just programmed this way. And, you know, it's a result of the pain that he inherited and recognizing that this healing journey that you've been on is so much about healing yourself, but also interrupting this generational cycle of trauma so that you're sparing your children from that. And, To me, like, I've been on a version of this myself.

And I've just really recognized that, if anything, like, that is the ultimate job of the parent, you know, to kind of arrest whatever pattern has been passed down generation after generation to spare your children of that and set them up, you know, liberate them from the pain that you inherited. Yeah, this is well put. I agree. Yeah, I think you're right. It takes a certain strength to do that. And my dad didn't have that strength. He didn't have the ability to make that transformation.

So that makes me feel sorry for him, you know. But you've seen old pictures of him when he was a kid in the 20s and 30s and like a sailor's uniform they used to wear with a long hair, you know. And he's this cute little kid. He looks, you know, very sensitive. And I'm sure he was beaten and he was badly treated. My grandfather on his side was he was a very tough guy, Army officer, hunter, heavy drinker, came from a very poor upbringing with 12 siblings.

His mom died when he was 12, I think, and he had to start working and support the family. I mean, a freaking nightmare. Yeah. I mean, just could you imagine back in the 20s what that was like? So my dad never really got a shot, you know. So, yeah, I think, you know, for me to forgive him and like you said, try to break the pattern of violence. And obviously my kids, my two daughters, they have their own trauma in some ways because, you know, I wasn't there all the time. an actor and, you know, we got divorced when they were in their teens. And so they have their own

version. You can't compare. There's no scales. Yeah. Your pain is your pain. Your pain is your pain. No matter, and not for nothing, like had you not, whatever you would have done, like paint any scenario, like the optimal dad situation, they're going to have, there's going to be something. Something. They're going to like, okay, tell your therapist, you know. None of us are doing this perfectly. you know, far from it. No, and it's like, and that's why it's important ever to say, like, well, when I was your age, you know, I was beaten three times a day. Like, it's not going to help them.

No. But you were, and then some. I mean, after, okay, so I'm, I can't remember where it falls on the timeline, but like, you know, you're at University of Washington, yeah? Or in Washington State. Washington State and then you're at Clemson. But you end up going back to Sweden and, you know, entering into the special forces training. That was after that, right?

Which is essentially like seal team training. Yes. Why did you decide to do that? And is that just sort of like a cultural imperative in Sweden or something that you needed that challenge? I was drafted. Like I'm a Swedish man during the Cold War. I was drafted. and I was put in a coastal artillery unit, which basically we used to have

coastal artillery. Sweden wasn't neutral. So it was, you know, you can never say, well, who's the enemy? But for some reason, all the guns were pointed eastwards. So I guess, you know, towards Russia. But, you know, you weren't supposed to say like, oh, because NATO or the Warsaw Pact. But I was in that unit. And then we had an offer to join this Navy SEAL unit, but you had to go through a selection course and the process to do that.

And I decided I wanted to try it. And that's when I hurt my ankle actually the first time, which I had surgery on only a few years ago. But it was a tough course, and most guys didn't make it. I think maybe about 20% made it or so. and I was just another test, I think, to want it to just impress my dad maybe. You're bearing the lead a little bit. You mentioned injuring your ankle, but this is another cinematic scene in the movie of your life where you're trudging out in the snow for God knows how long and you twist your, you roll your ankle or whatever, you just decide the

solution to this is tightening up your boots and just toughing it out for another day and a half in the frozen tundra. This is the costume of the warrior that you've adorned and, you know, befitting of a soldier and speaks to like that, you know, kind of relationship

with suffering and the disassociation between like, you know, mind and body. Yes, you're right. It's, yeah, it's a strange, strange domain. It's a shadow land

where when you get pushed past a certain point, you're in another world, you know, you probably, you're an ultra-athlete, so you know, it's like you don't know how you're gonna react, especially when it involves physical pain and violence. And I always looked at myself as a peaceful, kind of shy and sort of introvert person. But of course, then there's another side that comes out,

kind of like a like Mr. Hyde you know there's the other guy who comes out when he gets pushed to a certain point which when I'm kind of there watching on the sidelines myself oh okay now this is going to happen

and you kind of just kind of not even conscious of what's happening you're essentially this very sensitive artistic minded kid who is anxiety riddled and insecure and, you know, had you had a different set of parents might have, you know, grown up in Venice, California and been a sculptor or something like, you know what I mean,

but you're in the body of this guy, you know, like the dissonance between like the figure that you cut, your physicality and like what your kind of internal experience is is like is quite the delta. That's what's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have some, speaking of, there are. few people like that. I mean, that I had, you know, met in my life. They're in this business, like people like Sebastian Stallone, for instance, who had a similar upbringing, I believe,

is no secret. I know similar, but, you know, also as an artist, very sensitive. And he has this other side, too, that kind of warrior side. And it happens. And there's a certain, I think there's something in that that the camera kind of feels because, you know, if you look at the old movie stars like the Robert Mitchams and these guys, they were on the chain gangs and they were like hard drinkers and they had that other side and then they had a sensitivity as well. And I think that some of that is quite attractive in cinema. So I just, I just thought of that. Yeah, I mean, that ineffable quality of depth that, you know, comes across on screen without saying anything. It's like a look in the eyes or a facial expression. It speaks to, you know,

kind of an interior experience that doesn't quite match the physical appearance. Yes, that people feel that there is something else there, like that some, there's, there's a level of kind of some compassion or something underneath, even if that character is like shooting people or, like, you know, doing something very vicious. You still feel it. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, kind of, I mean, obviously a lot of actors, you know, played these sort of dark characters. I mean, just started like Robert De Niro or somebody, you know. I mean, you're watching him like with a baseball bat, you know, crushing somebody's called, but you still, you still feel the character as being a human being and kind of, you know,

having some, some sensitivity somehow. It's strange. So that's where it all started for me. I was, you know, because I had those two sides, I guess, And I was lucky that I ended up in the cinema because I could use both of those. Yeah. Otherwise, I would have been, you know, seriously alcoholic, you know, chemical engineer somewhere with three failed marriages behind. Yeah, who knows, man.

And in jail, probably for killing somebody. Yeah, but God put you on a pretty unique path, my friend. I mean, so when I mentioned synchronicities earlier, what comes after this is you end up in Sydney, you're getting your graduate degree in chemical engineering. And just to make ends meet, you're like a dormant at nightclubs, like a, you know, kind of like enforcer out front. Cash business. You end up like kickboxing some guy in the face because he got out of line trying to get into this club and somebody takes notice. And before you know it, you're hired to protect Grace Jones or stand outside her dressing room door for some appearance that she's making. And this is the kind of first inflection point that completely sets your life on a new trajectory.

Oh, yeah. I was so innocent back then. I think I had one girlfriend in my life and I'm 25. You're 24, 24. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember standing there.

It's like I have this sort of. a snapshot image of me standing outside and her kind of with some looking past the makeup artists, you know, over his shoulder and clocking me out there. And, you know, you feel the vibes. And then I ended up doing security at some club where she went out with all of her friends. And my sparring partner, who was another big guy, Australian guy, was there. And I think she was dancing with him. I was too shy to do anything like that. But, you know, he was kind of hitting on her, but, you know, obviously, you know, we ended up going back to her hotel. She had a big suite. I never seen a big suite before in a hotel. And she had an entourage,

maybe 20 people. Then there's 10. Then there's eight and four. And then suddenly it's just like me, him and her manager. And then he kind of, he gets sent home. And then finally the manager of leaves too. And then there's just, I kind of realized somewhere in there what was going on. And I ended up spending the night with her, you know, missing a few classes next day. And I was a bit, it was a bit of a shock for me. I was a bit, I didn't know why what she saw in me. I couldn't put it together. Like, I didn't feel like I deserved it, you know. Well, that sense of undeservedness is a, you know, a deep, a deep wound. Yeah.

that kind of recurs in how you show up in your life at various stages. Yeah, I think also sexually, you know, I was like such a amateur, you know. Yeah. I mean, you're so vulnerable and candorous in the book. I mean, you talk about like, you know, sexual performance anxiety. Yeah, for sure. It's like people see you and they're like, what? You know, like, how is this guy, you know, having this issue?

Well, I did make up for some of that later. book. This episode is brought to you by Go Brewing. Fall is beer season. You got your game days, you got your tailgates, you got people gathered in somebody's kitchen. And here's the shift that I really love.

At every single one of these gatherings now, somebody isn't drinking. Maybe a lot of somebody's. The old move was to hand that person, a seltzer, and an awkward, apologetic look, but no longer. The new move is to hand them something genuinely great. And that's go brewing, started by my friend Joe Chura, and a mission I believe in enough to have become an investor. They were one of the first breweries in the country to go all in on non-alcoholic, and the craft

is super legit. Gold and silver at the Best of Craft Beer Awards two years running. More world beer cup medals than any other brewery, a spot on the New York Times best NA beers list. No added sugars, no shortcuts. happens to leave the alcohol part out. Now you can find them in over 9,000 stores. But the good stuff, the exclusive small batch releases, this is what you want, only lives in their beer club, shipped straight to your door. Stock the cooler for the season, and somebody at your table is going to be really glad that you did. Visit gobrewing.com slash rich roll 50 to get a full 50% off your first subscription order to Go Brewing's beer club. So I turned 60 this fall, and here is

how I think about muscle now. It's a retirement account. Every bit that you build and keep today is what you will draw on for decades to come, which as I rebuild my body after spinal fusion surgery has never felt less theoretical. Creatine is one of the few supplements with real evidence behind that project,

supporting strength, lean muscle, recovery, even cognitive performance. But not all creatine is created equal, which is why I have, take Momentus Creatines specifically and why their new signature spec creatine matters. It's one of the only creatines made in a pharmaceutical facility verified through six stages of testing across four independent agencies. Ten times fewer impurities, tighter heavy metal limits, even P-FOS and micropastic screening. And it's micronized so fine that it dissolves clean.

No grit, no clumping. No brand can say the same. No brand. can compete. Momentus didn't have to raise the bar here. They already had the top shelf creatine product on the market, but they did it anyway. That's the standard they hold themselves to. That's Momentus, and that for us is peace of mind. Use code richroll at livemomentus.com slash rich roll for up to 35% off your first order. How long before that experience and you, you know, after taking a couple classes at MIT, you know, and deciding, like, let's go to New York, like, what is the time frame there? It feels like it all happened, like, really fast. Very fast. Yeah, I met her like in April. I think it was, and I had to,

then I fought in the Australian Open, which I won, actually. And then I met her later that year in Tokyo. I went to Tokyo to train karate with the main, um, master of that style. And she was there doing a commercial for Honda, I think it was, a car commercial. And then I went straight to New York with her. So that winter, I came to New York. And then that year, I was supposed to start MIT. So I had like six months off because the Southern Hemisphere, you know, the schools, they graduate in December. So their summer vacation is over. over the holidays. So it was kind of backwards.

So I had kind of a semester before I was supposed to start at MIT. So that semester, I was in New York. And that's when all this stuff happened with Warhol and, you know, I started, went to an acting class, all of these things. So by the time I was supposed to go to MIT, which I did with her on the back, just to like, check it out, see if I could, if I could do it. It was nine months later, I was, that's, that's, you know, that's. I dropped the ball and I just decided to become a somewhat starving actor in New York slash

Dorman. This is the montage in the movie where it's just like, you know, fast cuts of, you know, David Bowie and Michael Jackson and Madonna and Steve Rubell and Studio 54 and the factory and all of that. But where does the impulse to study acting come up? Like you end up, you know, with this acting coach. Yeah. And that's obviously another decision that changes your life.

Yeah, right. And another sort of father figure mentor. Right. Yes. I met this guy, Warden Robertson, who was an acting coach up east side and you are in Manhattan. He worked with Grace because she was going to be in Arnold's follow-up, Conan the Destroyer. So I met him through her. and I guess I felt some urge with acting that it was something interesting, people on stage,

you know, being emotional. And he was very much into the kind of primal scream. And he was into, he was a very perceptive guy. Like he could tell right away talking to me that I had some issues, I had trauma, something with my dad. So I remember I did a couple of scenes there. And one scene was, one scene I remember was from. the on the waterfront, which is a Marlon Brando picture where he kind of breaks down the door

and he's like arguing with Eva Marie Saint and he kind of, well, they're arguing she won't let him in. He breaks down the door and they kiss in and, you know, anyway, towards the end of the movie. So I did that scene and, you know, he, before I did it, I did it kind of a bad version and then he got me very emotional because of my dad and you have to stand there and there's like 75 people in the audience you stand there and he talks to you and then you kind of talk back maybe you speak to your dad like he had me speak to my dad

and get really emotional and upset and then okay now I start the scene so I kind of did the scene and then people seem to enjoy it and then I said wow this is this is amazing I'm like I feel better now so I kind of hijack my emotion and I got it I got to

express it somehow and I felt better Then I had to talk to him a little bit later and he said something like, you know, maybe the reason you've tried all these different things are because maybe you're an artist. Maybe you're not a chemical engineer, you know, maybe that's what you should do. You know, and I thought it made sense to me. So I think at some point their grace also realized that, wow, I kind of misjudged this guy. Yeah. You know, I'm not just, you know, good-looking, you know, ass-kicking, you know, chemical, I mean, chemical engineer who does karate, but there's an other side that I got sort of obsessed with acting. And I could tell that when I was on stage, people enjoyed watching for some reason, even though I was a complete amateur, they, there was something about me that they wanted, people wanted to see. And then when I were like, we grazed, people took pictures of me and stuff. They didn't know who I was, you know. Yeah, you were a sidearm guy.

Like, you're at all the places, but you're the unknown. You're striking in your appearance, but it wasn't because you had done anything. No. You were just there with Grace. Yeah. And Grace realizing, like, oh, there's this other aspect to this guy. Yeah. Maybe initially she thought that was cool, but that becomes problematic later.

Yeah. Then it started becoming problematic. I started, you know, she helped me in the beginning. And her agent became my agent. And then he set me up for some roles. And I started getting like callbacks for different movies and very quickly. And one was actually, Stallone was doing his Rambo sequel, Rambo 2 when he goes to Vietnam. And it was a big hit later.

And there was a Russian character in that movie that he fights this guy in the chopper at the end. And they wanted me for that. But at the same time, I'm also auditioning for this boxing movie, and it turns out to be another Stallone picture. So eventually ended up a year later, once I got the role in Rocky, then they kind of paid me off for the other role, which is a lot of money for me in those days, the $5 grand or something. And I was like, yes, I got it.

I didn't have to do it. And then I was doing the Rocky movie. But, you know, you're right. It started, I started sort of accessing parts of me in the acting work that made me, it was pleasant in one way, but it was also uncomfortable. Yeah, this confrontation with your past. When I read that, I'm thinking about how, you know, you can translate your pain into these superpowers. You did it, you know, as a student and you did it as an athlete. And now in the arts, you're finding a way to channel these experiences that are so difficult

and translate them into some kind of artistic sensibility that empowers your acting career. You know, it's so interesting. You talk about, you shared that story about him encouraging you to like have this conversation with your dad and you're able to like cry on cue. And that's like a direct experience of that trauma. But I'm wondering, like, did that make you want to seek more healing for that? Or was that just like, oh, I can use this? I'm going to keep it compartmentalized and chambered, but I can bring it out when I need it.

So I can use it as a tool or a utility. Yeah, I think that's what it was. I just kept it compartmentalized. I kept it as kind of a secret weapon to make a character more interesting. Or, you know, to get out of my head, to get more emotional, would make me less self-conscious as an actor. And obviously, I sometimes think about, you know, had I not gotten a Rocky Four role,

had I stayed there and studied acting properly, not just six months, but like six years or something, like I did with karate, what would that have looked like, you know? It wasn't meant to be, but could have been interesting. a stage actor or like a deep dramatic actor. Unfortunately, you're packaged in this incredibly beautiful body and that was not your destiny. So you get this bit part in the James Bond movie, small little part. Rocky Four comes after that.

Stallone famously said, this guy's perfect for the role and people are going to hate him because he's too perfect. Yeah. Like your perfection becomes, you know, like the reason that the audience is going to turn against you, which I think is super insightful and also very funny. And this begins, you know, you go on this, you know, cue the next montage right out of Rocky where you go on this insane kind of training to prepare for this role. But it's the beginning of this very interesting relationship.

that you have with Sylvester Stallone, like a closeness, a kinship and a friendship, but also, you know, not without its competitive nature and kind of like headbutting,

you know, incidents along the way. Yeah. Yeah, we are destined somehow to, you know, to have, to be connected somehow

artistically and personally, which I don't think happen to, you know, it certainly has not happened to other people I've worked with. And I think it's quite unusual for him too, that somebody he worked with 40 years ago, you know, we ended up doing what, how many movies together, one, two, three, four, five, six films together over 40 years. So quite unusual, I think. Yeah. In the business. You train like a maniac for this role.

You do the movie. You're doing ADR and post. You're not really thinking too much about you're seeing some footage. You're not impressed. So it seems like you're not staking your future on what's going to happen with this movie. And then you attend the premiere. So tell the story of the before and the after of that evening. Oh, yeah.

The premiere of Rocky 4, it was November 85 in Westwood at Westwood Marquis. I think it was. And they had a new CEO of MJMs. They had the marching bands and the elephants and the whole thing. And, you know, I came out of the limo and I'm Grace Jones's, you know, boyfriend, toy boy, whatever. And people are trying to get me out of the way, take pictures of her. And yes, some folks may have known that I was, you know, the villain in the movie, but not many. I don't think.

It wasn't like now their social media, and people didn't really know. And I sat down in my seat. And then, you know, the movie starts with these two. These two gloves, Soviet glove, American glove. And I remember sitting there, with my mouth open, like for 90 minutes just staring. Because you hadn't seen the picture. And I didn't realize how powerful those close-ups were. like this, you know, that they shot where, you know, the old tungsten lighting that illuminates

your eyes and, you know, on the big screen is very powerful. And the character, this is during the Cold War. So you had like a real, people are really, you know, people have feelings about the Soviet Union and about that confrontation possible. There's a nuclear standoff going down much bigger than, let's say, there's a war in Iran. Well, okay. But the Soviet Union, they had 10,000 nuclear. Claire, you know, warheads. It was different. So I think the lights came up and I was in shock.

I think that I realized the movie was super powerful. I was moved at the end. I was moved by my character. I was moved by, you know, Rocky winning. I thought was the right way. They should have ended up way. I was and I turned around and everybody's looking at me for some reason. And I was like, you know, and I remember Stallone had told me, just wait. wait till this film opens. Forget the Bond movie. This rocky picture is going to be huge. And as I walked out of the theater,

people are taking pictures of me. There's photographers everywhere, and they're asking me questions. There's, like, press there. And I was a bit disoriented. I felt almost a little ill. Like, I sort of felt like, oh, wow, this is going to be difficult,

and especially with grace. felt also that just instantaneously I kind of just felt that I don't know very disoriented and I read somewhere that somebody said that when you get famous it it um halters your development like you freeze at that age or something yeah similar to like Michael Jackson in in recovery also like you're when you get sober you're the emotional age of when you began using, you know, it completely arrests your emotional development. Maybe it's right, because if you think about people like Michael Jackson or, you know, Elvis and become very famous at a young age, right? So I think maybe I, 27 years old, 28 years old, so I probably had some

kind of shock and it took me a few years to recover 10 years. Everything was different after that. Everything was different. And also, it was back in the day when you were either a TV actor on a TV show, you were a movie star. And there was nothing literally in between. And, you know, real movie stars like, let's say, like Jack Nicholson, he never did any talk shows. There was no press. You couldn't see him anywhere.

Maybe in a paparazzi photo, but you could only experience that person by going to the movies. So it was like more of a kind of magical kind of. of a feeling when people saw you in real life. Yeah, there was a mystique. A mystique. We didn't have a 24-7 news cycle where there's a whole industry around reporting on every celebrities, every move. I think I probably thought you were Russian, even though your name is Lundgren.

You know, like, because there wasn't really anything out there about you, but I was a senior in high school when that movie came out. It was huge. And I think also the way it was shot and directed, Stallone directed it. and Bill Butler was the DP who shot a lot of movies in the 80s he had that fantastic lighting

so it has this modern quality with the montage, the music, the freeze frames, the big close-ups. It's quite modern, so I think a lot of movies that are made in the 80s, they've aged quite, not that well. Like, it's kind of hard to watch them now, but Rocky 4 kind of young kids still watch it

and they can still kind of, can kind of enjoy it, you know. You become this overnight sensation as a result of Rocky IV. You have the delirium of instant fame and, you know, what that kind of like reaps in your personal life. And I want to talk about that. But on a professional level, now you're in the limelight. I think I've been in like 80 movies over the years. Like your IMDB is, you know, super long. Like, you've done a ton of stuff.

But at the same time, you're in the conversation with guys like Stallone and Van Dam and Schwarzenegger. And these guys just ascend to superstardom. And your path is a little bit different. Well, yeah, you're right. What happened was, I think, late 70s, and bodybuilding came like early 70s, pumping iron. And then Arnold did Conan the Barbarian, like 78 or something. and then he did, then Sly came and did, you know,

for his blood, and then Arnold did Terminator, 85, I think it was, we did Rocky 4. Suddenly, you couldn't fake it. Like, if you wanted to play an athlete, you had to be an athlete.

And all these guys, they found all these, a lot of Europeans, actually, like Van Damme, myself, Schwarzenegger, then you had Stallone, you also had Seagal. up, you had to have the abs, you had to have the body, you had to be able to look like you could

kick ass, you had to be able to run and jump and do everything yourself because there was this new kind of body culture and you didn't have CGI yet, so you couldn't use a stunt guy. So there's that period between like, say, late 70s until 1988 where I think it was 88 or 89 when Tim Burton put Michael Keaton in a muscle suit. And Michael Keaton did the acting, and then he had the suit for the muscles, and then we had, they probably had a couple of doubles through the fighting, and that changed things quite a bit.

So I came right. I think that was like 90 or 91 when that really came out. Yeah. When he came out, so in between there, that was when we started. And of course, you know, I was in the same group of Stallone, and Arnold and these guys, obviously they're older to me, but I think the difference was that Arnold,

he was a very driven guy, he had a plan, he wanted to be Mr. Universe, and he wanted to be a movie star, and then he wants to be governor. And Sly was an artist, you know, he was a good writer. Van Dam also is a very clever business guy, you know.

I was just disdose. kid who, you know, a couple of years earlier was going to MIT and hitting the bag, you know, and now suddenly I'm the movie star. So I didn't really know how to proceed. So I kind of, I got some bad advice. I would say now in retrospect, I, some of the, my advisors, managers weren't just the best people in the business. And, you know, I still survived by just sheer, you know, perseverance, but I don't think I, you know, really, I wasn't really focused on the right projects, on my craft, on these things. Either it was like take a business approach like Arnold or take like a creative approach like Stallone, somewhere in between, but I didn't

really take any of that. I just kind of followed what people told me. So, so for me, it was a tough time, you know. I did movies that did fairly well. A couple of, four, they say, three or four movies after Rocky Four, and then it kind of started petering out because I didn't have Stallone to look out for me. I didn't have MGM. I didn't have good directors, a good script. So I think it became more of a struggle, like early 90s from there on, it sort of became more of a struggle. My trauma started to kind of come up and make itself, you know, announce itself in my private life. I started kind of partying a little harder and doing crazier stuff on the stunt front and training. And yeah, so I kind of, it was, it was, yeah, the sort of initial

allure of fame was kind of given away to sort of a day-to-day kind of more of a harder existence, You have these guys like Arnold and Sly. They're on a mission. They came to Hollywood with a dream and a purpose. They've been imagining a cake they've been baking for a very long time. And they will not be denied. No. You show up like, oh, maybe I'll take some acting class.

Like this is all kind of happening to you. You didn't arrive with that degree of intention that you've been thinking about for a long time. So there's that piece. Then you have Arnold who's just, you know, have you ever met anyone with more self-confidence, you know, and charisma? Like he had this self-belief. Like he was going to manifest this no matter what. And he could just see it happening. Then we have you.

Not only are you kind of new to town and like, yeah, you're getting some acting chops and you're getting a bunch of attention. But like, you're sort of a deer in headlights in this situation. You hadn't really thought it through. You have this amazing break with Rocky Four, but, you know, was there even a plan about, like, how to build upon that afterwards? Not to mention this insecure kind of anxiety riddled, like, inner child, you know, you said the trauma started to, like, you know, create some negative behaviors in the aftermath of this. not the least of which I would imagine was, you know, just a sense of like undeservedness. Like, hey, I'm lucky. Like, I don't know that, you know, like, I really, like, I don't, I'm not Arnold or I'm not

this guy. And maybe that manifested as a little self-sabotage or, you know, just a lack of self-belief. Like, I don't want to project upon you, but I'm curious around, like, how you think about it in that context, like the relationship to your childhood and how you, you know, what your inner monologue was at that time when all that was happening? You know, having a lack of a vision and a plan from the beginning, you know, makes you a little less focused, you know, because you know, I really know what you're looking for. Obviously, fame was great, you know.

I was single. I'm meeting a lot of young pretty girls, you know, a lot of new friends, you know. I could work out. I could travel around the world. I could enjoy fame. make money that didn't have before. There was a lot of new aspects to it that that were quite seductive, you know. I think also I kind of knew on a deep level that I did have this problem, this trauma, the kind of addictive personality. Could be addictive to stunts or training or

could be addicted to drugs or alcohol or sex or whatever. Escape behavior. I heard about that. You know, you have, I talk about it in the book where you, you know, you're trying to escape something that's inside you. You know, it's like a soldier drinking or being involved in violence or sexual affairs or, but you have to deal with what's there. Or body perfection. Yeah. Like the training. Or that too. Yeah.

Why? I had all that. I was the escape behavior. And I think what happened was early in 90s, my mother passed away in 92. She was quite young, only 60. And, yeah, she didn't protect me, but I loved her. And she was a very gentle, very loving, sweet person. Never heard her, raise her voice or do anything, you know, negative once, I think, in her life.

She was one of those people. She was very giving. And it was a bit of a shock to me, you know. She passed away very suddenly. And I met the Swedish girl in New York. And I kind of got engaged to her. and I wanted to replace my mom, I think. So I, and this girl, she was great at that time.

She hated L.A., didn't like Hollywood at all. So we ended up moving to New York first, and then eventually we moved back to Europe. And I think part of that was to satisfy her. And the other part was maybe I had a feeling that I didn't have the strength to survive maybe in Hollywood with my trauma. And I would have self-destructed perhaps, like I started. when I was a kid before my dad got me up to my grandparents. So I went back to Europe and kind of removed myself from Hollywood scene a little bit.

And so I think that affected my career, you know, because once you're gone, once you're even going to Miami, you know, it's not the same thing as being in L.A., but going to Marbea, Spain, 7,000 kilometers from here, 5,000 miles from here, you know, that impacted my career quite substantially. And I wanted to have a family with her, and I think I wanted to have like a normal life somehow. And I felt that I wasn't cut out for Hollywood maybe at that time. I was doing movies, but I wanted a bit of a, she wanted the distance.

And I think I didn't mind either. I was kind of led along there. I don't know if it would have been better to stay and smack in the middle of Hollywood or if that would have been a very negative thing for me, you know, I could have gotten trouble in all kinds of ways. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like self-preservation to get out of there to, you know, spare yourself the, you know, the pain of your inevitable demise if you kind of stayed here. If we had a people magazine from 1989 and took a look and see who was still around,

there'd be a lot of people who you never be dead or going. Yeah, of course. Yeah, a lot of casualties. And also, like, as much as I romanticized, like, kind of, you know, studio 54 of it all, like, you know, a lot of those people died. Yeah. This is, you know, was not for the week of heart at all. And it just, you know, everything is praying on your baser instincts to behave.

badly and if you're already prone to that kind of behavior because of, you know, your past, you know, it's not going to go well. So I think it was a survival mechanism to like get out of town. Also, not for nothing, like the chaos of how your relationship with grace ended. I mean, when the power dynamic shifted and you are no longer the arm piece and now you're the center of attention. Like that relationship becomes dysfunctional. She is challenged by that and, you know, there's a lot of insane behavior. There's throwing bricks and voodoo dolls and like burning your pictures and your clothes and, you know, guns and all kinds of stuff, right? And, and this, this sort of codependency aspect to that relationship that you have to extract yourself out of that

and you find a net and it's like, oh, this is, this feels like home. You know, this feels stable. Your mom's passed away. I can build a life with this person. This is a way of saving myself. I think you're right. Yeah, I did. I think my last picture that went on the big screen, it was Universal Soldier, was 1992 around the time I met Annette. And then I think we had one more John Annemonic with John Keanu Reeves. But, you know, after that, I wasn't on the big screen until 2010. So that's, what is that, 17 years later. This Johnny Nemonic movie provided you with the opportunity to return to Sweden and do some press. Yeah, and also later I did this thing called Summer.

I was a summer host where you, it was a radio show where you play music and you talk about your life. This is quite a bit later. And I did that. My oldest daughter was quite young and I decided the producer, the female producer, had told me when I told her my story, oh, the one thing about your dad is really good. You should talk about that. So I did the summer, this radio show

when I spoke about my relationship to my dad. And so it starts with me being a kid, sitting on his shoulders, and we're watching the changing of the guards, and they play some Swedish famous march. And it starts there, and then it goes, everything that happens between that moment and the moment,

for open. So that's the whole thing that the Swedes didn't know, did not know about me. And when I did that and I got very emotional speaking about it, that changed everything in Sweden. And after that, they kind of took me to heart again. They embraced you. Yeah. You went from pariah to hear up, like in one interview. More or less. Yeah. What's interesting about that to me is it demonstrates the power of vulnerability as a vehicle for connection. Like by you having the courage to like share that very, you know, intimate story about your upbringing.

And I don't know what the culture was like in Sweden at that time around talking about this kind of stuff. But obviously that really connected with people and they were able to see your humanity. And that allowed them to, you know, form a new story around like who you are. And perhaps that's the first time. that you had like that kind of direct encounter with like being honest and open as this like you know stoic person who's always armored up and thinking that's the way to connect with people and realizing like no it's this other way yeah you're right that's it's it's it was true then and it's true now i think that

people you know especially in our world i mean there's so much so much that's manufactured and that is, you know, either AI or CGI or, you know, planned by, no offense to anybody here, publicists, you know, it's everything is like, it's a story that's been rehearsed. But if you're honest about things, it can be quite powerful, I think. Did you clock that at that time? Like, were you consciously aware? I was, I didn't know was going to be like that, but I had a feeling that. I wanted to be honest about it because I also, my kids never knew what was, what's wrong

with our dad? Like, why is he like that? Like, why does he go out drinking? Why is he, why doesn't he connect sometimes? And they weren't, they didn't know what had happened to me. But my daughter was there. And, you know, kids are very, she was little, but, you know, kids are very emotional. So she started crying, too, towards the end.

because I was getting emotional and you know they just pick it up right and I think you know I told them the story after that too about my dad I had never told them what had happened to me so it sort of opened up a whole other world for me where I realized well this can actually be a positive thing for me it doesn't have to be a secret that it makes me feel bad it's almost the opposite as somebody who was so used to or acclimated to like cutting a certain pose and making sure that you were protected behind this mask of, you know, ultimate masculinity. I would imagine there was a sense of like fear or risk about like sharing that publicly for the first time and thinking like,

how are people going to, they're going to think about me differently. Now I'm vulnerable. Like I'm supposed to be the ultimate warrior, you know. Yeah. I mean, I've been through it a few times. And lately with the cancer. And then, you know, at that time, it was the first time that I was, that I opened up. And it felt really good. And it made me feel better than what I felt when I was acting or better than I felt, you know, almost any time in my life to share things and to share my story and my pain was

making me feel better. And I also think because I wasn't using, I wasn't really, getting dramatic roles where I could express it that much. Like, it wasn't like, you know, family dramas or anything. Yeah. It was like, you know, an action guy. Yeah, he gets upset, you know, when he, his buddy dies or something. But it's, you know, kind of killing spree.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But so I couldn't, couldn't use my work either to express it. But I think, yeah, it was a great feeling. And I wish I would have done more of it. But over the years, I've gotten, I've shifted more, I think, into that space of trying to share some wisdom, I guess, or, you know, some emotions that maybe other people can relate to. Yeah. You're in Marbea. You're making movies.

You're doing your thing. You're raising your kids. Maybe drinking a little bit too much. Yeah. Marriage, maybe not going so great. But, you know, it's a life. Then 2010 rolls around. Your brother Sly gives you a call.

And you're kind of back in the game again with this Expendables movie, which you build upon and you're kind of back doing interesting things again. Like there is this second or third act where you're doing larger projects than you have in a long time. And 2015 rolls around. Yeah, well, what happened was first I knew I had to move back to the states for my finances, for my career. It was basically I took a 90% salary cut between, say, 1993 when I moved to like 2000, whatever, 2005. And my wife didn't want to move. We ended up having a lot of problems, and I got divorced in 2010.

Moved back to LA. Sly had called me for expandables. That was a hit. Now I'm sort of on the path to doing other things, and I am getting more, I'm getting into therapy. I'm doing meditation. I started working with my... What prompted that? I was in another relationship with another woman.

a Swedish girl, actually. And I knew I was going to screw it up. I knew I was going to, I have to do something. I was still drinking too much. I was flirting with other women, and I figured. And she was the one who told me about meditation. And then another. It was Vipassana, right?

Yeah, Vipassana. And also I, somebody said, you know, you should try therapy because I was my an actor, a friend of mine. And I, so I got into both, and it started changing my life,

and I started feeling much better, you know, less anxious, you know, less escape behavior. And then 2015 rolls around, like you said, and I'm in Sweden,

doing some karate training. I thought I had, got kicked in the kidney or something because I was, I had bled in the urine, but it turned out to be kidney cancer. So, you know,

know, this is, I didn't tell anybody and I still ended up doing another expandables. I ended up doing Aquaman. I did, you know, Creed 2. I went to, had surgery, but five years later, you're supposed to be, I was supposed to be cancer free 2020. So that was a period of personal growth, I guess, back in LA career, picked up again. And then it 2020, the cancer came back. 2015, kidney cancer diagnosis. Yeah.

You treat it. It goes into remission. You don't really tell anyone what's going on. No. Is that because you're afraid that it will cost you roles, or is it just this protective armor of, you know, trying to maintain this aura of invincibility? Is it the,

is it a, like, trauma response? like you don't want to show weakness or you don't want the people around of your children to have to suffer so you're going to suffer in silence? I think it had more to do with my career. I was afraid that it would

change my image or people who weren't going to offer me any work. I mean, I kids knew about it. I told them. I had a vacation in Europe and we were on the yacht, I remember, and I told both my daughters, it was in Italy,

and they both were crying, of course. I told them that I had a tumor in my kidney, we're going to take it out. So they knew about it, but not a lot of other people did. I think it was just, I didn't know where to start. I was scared. I didn't want people to, you know, think that I was going to die and not offer me any movies.

I think a combination, and also not to bother. other people, you know, like to feel sorry for me, friends and, you know, not my kids knew and some of my close friends, but, you know, the rest of the world. See, I didn't want them to have to worry about me, I guess. And work becomes in easy and accessible escape behavior. Yes. Work became very even more accessible. I, uh, I did a lot of roles. I did my own stunts.

A lot of stuff in Aquaman 2. Aquaman 1. I did Creed 2. I did a bunch of action movies. Kept training. Also, I was taking, you know, steroids. I was taking HGH stuff that can enhance tumor growth. Yeah.

I was just on a kind of like in a testosterone kick. Mm-hmm. That was like a 10-year period of that. Yeah, my movies, all of my movies and because of my movies and also because of sports and some things I was doing, fighting and other things I was doing. But I think it was also not knowing how to slow down. I didn't know how to stay home and read a book or anything like that or stay on the couch. And I couldn't even think about doing that.

So now I can, but I couldn't. So chemical engineer, advanced degrees in chemical engineering gets his hands on steroids. Yeah. Like what is that? You know, like that had to be, you know, you being some kind of mad scientist at that point, you know, experimenting on yourself. Well, yeah, the experimentation started earlier in the 80s. But I think it was more like a guy who was really into his body and, you know, wanting to see, you know, how far can I take it and here, oh, this stuff's supposed to be good.

No, I don't, I recover faster. I get bigger muscles and a lot of other guys are doing it. And, you know, when you're 30 years old, you don't think of, you know, don't think of any repercussions or anything negative. So I did it on and off when I was younger. And then I was off it for a while and I would do it a little bit and you keep doing it. And I think I, after the cancer, the first cancer scare, I think I was afraid of feeling weak. So I went back and I sure.

Oh, you did it after your fruit. Yeah. Wow, that's interesting. Yeah. Listen, muscles aren't the only thing that these things grow. No. You know? No.

That's really, that's like high risk behavior. Yes. It is. And even now, actually, I was talking to my oncologist about it. you know, a lot of these new wellness, longevity, medications. The peptides and all. Yeah. People haven't taken them long enough for there to be enough evidence or scientific evidence

to what it really does. You know, so who knows what it's going to look like 20 years from now. So you survive that first bout with cancer. You go into remission, 20-20, rolling around. Peak COVID. Everyone's shut down. Everything is shut down. I was doing a movie in Alabama and it gets shut down because actually I was directing.

And it got shut down because of COVID. And somebody says, hey, don't come back to LA. It's even worse. Alabama's a little more open. So we stay there, me, my wife, Emma, my new wife. I was not married to her yet. I was seeing her. And then somebody said, well, Sweden's really open.

You should go to Sweden. So I went to Sweden. And same thing happened. Like the first time, I was training. And I started feeling a bit ill. I went for a catch scan, and there was another tumor. There was like six tumors in that same area where they'd taken the one out. So I wasn't an expert, but I knew enough about cancer,

whether you have six more tumors in that area is not a good sign. And it was the week that I'd planned to ask Emma to marry me. And it wasn't very easy to plan that because it was during COVID. I had special permission to use the roof terrace and I had hard violinist. And my friends were going to show up. And this was like on Thursday. And on Tuesday, I found out. So I was like, oh, shit, you know, what am I going to do?

I bought the ring and everything, so I just, I'm just, I'll go ahead and do it anyway. So I went ahead and did it. And we got engaged, but obviously there was kind of, and then by the way. By the way, yeah. I mean, it had like spread all over. Well, it wasn't just. No, it was, it was, hadn't spread yet. It was there around the kidney.

And what happened was I went back to America. I had surgery again, the same hospital. And then I went back and finished that picture, the one that was put on hold because of COVID. And then they realized, oh, it spread a little bit. And I was going to get rid of that. And then they couldn't do it. It was the tumor had gotten too big. They gave me immunotherapy, which is when you take drugs, IV drugs, and they help you boost your own immune system.

But they have bad side effects like you get sores on your feet and your mouth. mouth, you can get blood cloths and your lungs, which I did, so you have to take blood thinners, et cetera, lose weight. So I did that for about six months, and it did turn out, I found out later that those were the wrong drugs. I was misdiagnosed. They weren't going to help no matter how much of it I took, because the type of cancer I had was another mutation that you have to really look at the cells to determine what it is. And they hadn't done. on that. At that point, before getting the second opinion, you were under the impression that this was the end of the road, essentially. Like, you didn't, you weren't going to beat it this time.

I, I don't know if I, I don't think I gave up, but I was told, I mean, I did another, I did two pictures in London, Aquaman and Expanables 4, I shot in London while I was doing all this. Wow. And I was fairly good, good mood for some weird reason. I think it was some Viking part of me kicked in where it was like, oh, fuck it. You know, it's like, oh, we're going to hell anyway. We're going to Valhalla.

You're just going to fucking enjoy it. Go out in a blast of glory here. So I wasn't feeling that depressed. And the doctor in London, he was the one who told me, you know, that, you know, I said, well, I had a man to man talk to him when, not with Emma, but he said, yeah, you probably have about three years left, but I thought he probably meant less because he didn't want to tell me the truth. So I, it was tough. I mean, I was working on my own will, changing that around. And this is the end of, this is the end of 2019, a 2020, 2020, 2021, actually.

So, yeah, and it's starting to kind of dawn upon me that maybe there's this the end, but, you know, somebody had told me there's another doctor at UCLA who was really good. You should, once you get a second opinion, so I was, I have to come home from, I came back from the set, and I had to gather all my stuff together on my charts and then send it to this woman. And I thought, well, this is not going to lead to anything, but I'll do it anyway. well, you know, I just had a feeling I got to explore all options. A little bit like with Stallone and Rocky Ford, like, okay, well, you know, this guy says it's over,

but what about, let me try this person. So I did that. And that's when we came back to America and went to see her at UCLA, she immediately said there's something that isn't right here. It doesn't make sense. I looked at your biopsy in it. It's a very, very unusual type of kidney cancer that this medication you've been getting has no effect on this. But there's another five medications you can take that works against us.

She was able to identify a genetic marker that made you a candidate for a very targeted treatment. Yes. that ultimately proved to be unbelievably effective. Yes. And, you know, completely changes the entire thing. I mean, you go from like, well, this is my eminent demise to, you know, suddenly, like a completely different picture of what your future could look like. And this doctor, like this is another synchronicity kind of thing.

Like her dad's a huge fan of yours. Her husband, I think, worked out at the same gym as you. Yeah. You know, like you fall into the lap of absolutely the right person who's going to help you out here. And you're given this, you know, second chance at life. I know. And the dizzying kind of like whiplash effect of like it's going to be this way to now it's this way. Like, what was that like?

Well, you know, hearing you talk about it, it's just amazing what happened. I still can't really believe it, you know. I can't believe that I was that close to dying, and I can't believe that this other person could just turn it around in like four weeks because I started taking their other drug, and within four weeks, everything was shrinking. And I was in another movie. Actually, I was directing another picture because I didn't want, I wanted to keep working, you know. Yeah, because God forbid, you sit still for a minute. Yes. No, I can't.

So yeah, I mean, look, I guess somehow I felt that, yeah, I may not have been, you know, as successful as Arnold or Sly, but I've always tried to be nice to people and be a good person. And maybe it came back to me, you know, from the universe. And that's why I was given the second chance. Yeah. And, you know. You're given this gift. Yeah. And now, you know, in the in the aftermath of that with the benefit of time and perspective, like what have you extracted from that experience and a lifetime of all of these, you know, unbelievable experiences that you've had, a very unique life, has it taught you about what's important and what's meaningful in life?

Yeah. Well, it's not an easy question to answer because there's so many parts to it, you know. All the people you love, all the, how quickly the whole thing goes. You know, the good, you know, the good energy coming back to you, all these circumstances in my case. but I think that I am well I think there is some meaning

there's some meaning with our lives you know I think everybody there's a reason we're here and I think my reason had to do with sharing experiences with other people and I think that's why I switched from engineering to this

when I'm sitting here with you and instead of shaking a test tube somewhere maybe that is some of the meaning on one level, there's that connection to everybody else on this planet, all the other people, because we're all in this, in the same journey like how we started, is the monomith. We're all going through it, whether you're American or Russian or Iranian or, you know, Ukrainian, it doesn't matter, right? And I've always felt the kinship to everybody. I don't feel, I'm not a political person.

I feel everybody has a value. And I can connect to everybody. And I think my life has been some kind of message, I guess. Like there is that, you know, when they said, give us a message. And he said, my life is my message. You know. I read this other quote by, I think it was by Louise Hay, who said, who I listened to her, I listened to her affirmation.

almost every night, you know. And she said, one thing she has when she says, I am the treasure I've been seeking. That's the nugget. Like, that's the centerpiece in this whole healing journey of you returning home. Because I think that the impact of the trauma that you suffered powered you through this astonishing life. Yeah.

But so much of it was driven by pain, unresolved. pain at the core of which is this sense of not maybe self-loathing but like a refusal to accept yourself as you are to love yourself and in the aftermath of the cancer journey and all the therapy that you've done and you know Louise Hay plays a large role in this it's it's really about coming to this place where you can accept yourself and and have self-love and compassion for yourself. You talk about looking into the mirror and rehearsing a mantra to yourself. Yeah. Yeah, when you look in the mirror, like you say, I love you. You know, you look yourself in the eye. I mean, that's hard for most people to do. Yeah. And mean it, because when you first start,

you don't mean it. And you realize, why don't I mean it? Because is this something you did, or is somebody told me that a long time ago? especially if you're the ultimate alpha male yeah you know yeah then it's even more difficult yeah like this is beta behavior you know what i mean from a cultural perspective yeah we're in this moment right now where there's a lot of young men who are suffering and they're looking for meaning this loneliness epidemic, a lack of opportunity. And we have a digital social media landscape that's populated by people who are influencing

this generation of young men who are looking for guidance, looking for father figures and mentor. And you being kind of like the ultimate giga-chat who could outmog anyone. What is your message? to that young man who is suffering and prone to, you know, the influence of somebody who might not be giving them the best guidance. Well, you have to, well, what we were talking about is you have to love yourself first before you can love others. And that's what's hard in life.

And it takes a long, it's easier to said than done, you know. Because if you don't love yourself, then strength doesn't mean anything. And strength can be used for negative purposes, and it is a lot in the world. Because you can take these young men and you can feed them some kind of false messaging and use their aggressiveness to negative purpose. And it's done every day. We just turn on the TV, you see it. But I think it's up to each individual to try to find themselves and find the treasure in themselves.

because then maybe you're not so susceptible to that language, to that indoctrination. You do things for yourself, you know, because what you believe in, not what people tell you to believe in. A lot of that misguided messaging is around the material aspects of success, you know, the right car, the right suit, the right watch, the right haircut, the right physique. the right job and salary. And you're somebody who has lived all of those lives. You've lived them on screen, but you've lived them in real life. You've had extreme fame. You've had more external validation than almost, you know, like 0.001% of people who've

ever lived. You've had money. You've lost money. You've had, you know, the most beautiful women in the world on your arm. Like all of these things that like, Andrew Tates of the world. are telling you, like, if you have this, you'll be happy, and this is how the world will perceive you. And you've come out the other side, having one lost,

suffered, experienced, awe and wonder, survive cancer, parented children, been married, gotten divorced, all of it, like the full spectrum of life, right? And so what can you report back about these ambitions that a young person might have around the material possession or celebrity or fame or status or movie stardom or the appearance of your partner, all of those things that seem to capture quite a bit of mindshare in terms of where we should be placing our ambitions. Well, you know, I don't know if I'm the person.

Not to put you in a position of being a spokesperson, but I'm talking about you and your life and speaking from your own direct experience. Well, I think all of those things are fine, you know, ambition is fine, material things are okay. I mean, it's interesting to experience things in life. We only hear once, as far as I know, as far as we know. You know, it's nice to drive a cool car. It's nice to have a Ferrari or a good suit or beautiful woman or family. I mean, all those things are good. I mean, I think it's okay to achieve those things. It's more about not losing yourself. I mean, I think it is, I think one also has to remember that, you know, the Russian author Solzhenitsch, you know, he said, Nobel Price winner, he said, the line between good and evil

cuts through the heart of every man. So we have to remember that. And it's, we have both. The good and the evil, he put it very bluntly, but, you know, we have, I think it's a bit of a struggle within all the time, all of us. It's a fight to try to do the right thing,

you know, to put it simple. But I think if you feel you do the right thing, if you really believe that you're doing the right thing, then you always going to be okay. You're always going to feel good about yourself. And I think that's how I want to be remembering. People, you know, the Vikings said that cattle, you know, cattle die, kinsmen die, you yourself, one shall die. But I know one thing that never dies is the judgment over the dead man. How do people speak about you when you're gone?

And I think that's where it's at. As a man on the deep level, that's where I think we all want to be. And that's the kind of, I think if we kind of remember that, and I think you're going to make the right decisions. Have you lived your life with integrity? Are you basing your decisions on self-aggrandizement or the betterment and welfare of other people? How generous are you of spirit and heart?

all of these things are what matters and I think you're correct in saying like the nice car and all the trappings of success are fine but if you're seeking them as a way of you know filling that hole in your spirit it's not going to get you there and somebody also said you know your job as a man is to be to be in the red to give more than you were given to love more than you than you You were loved to protect more people than you were protected, like to have a positive net, you know, then it's okay. And I think it wasn't for, then your life meant something, you know. And I think it's in there somewhere that, you know, it comes down to,

and I don't make all the right decisions all the time, but I think on the whole, I would say, looking back in my life, I could kind of stand behind that, I would say, that I feel like I think I've fulfilled those things. Still a warrior, but a peaceful warrior. Yes, the older, wiser warrior. The guy who comes back from the battles and can maybe teach the young warrior or something. Yeah.

The man who can return like Russell Crow at the end of Gladiator home, having vanquished his enemies, but also can look in the mirror and say, Dolf, I really, really love you. Yeah. And not feel like that's cringy. Yeah. Like to mean it. Yeah, to mean it. Yeah.

And to do it as a practice of self-nurturing and honoring. Like you mentioned like being in the red, like always giving more than you're seeking to receive. but doing it with a bright spirit, not because you feel like your worth or your deservatness is contingent upon other people seeing you doing those things, but out of like a self-honoring practice. Like I deserve to love the people that I love

to the best of my ability and the way that I do that is by showing up for them, not running away in escape behaviors. or freezing, you know, your freeze response. Yeah, and there's also the other side of it, which I want to listen to you, it's that you're learning by yourself until the day you die. You know, I feel like I want to learn stuff. I mean, it's a process.

The work has never done. No, the work is never done. Somebody said, I'm a river. I'm learning how to cross. And you're navigating that river. And it's like, you know, the current's going this way. you have to steer the boat that way and then it goes that way and then you keep going and I think that's the exciting part of it. It never, it never stops. Life will continue to be uncertain. There is

pain in your future. Yes. And the work is never done. No. But along the way, you've made peace with your past, with your father and your mother and your upbringing. Yes. And that has allowed you to make peace with yourself and to love yourself. And the reason to love yourself is so that you can give more of yourself to the things that you care about and the people that matter in your life. Is that a fair? Like this is the, you know, this is Odysseus finally arriving on the shores of Ithaca after his very long journey.

You're right. And some people, Jesus Christ, may have reached that when he was 30. some people reach it when they're 65, you know? It's a journey when you get to that state. And right now, health-wise, I mean, you look good, you feel good? Yeah, I feel good, yeah. I feel good, I feel like the old warrior is kind of coming back and took me about two years to get back of shape, but I feel pretty good now.

Every week I'm actually getting stronger again, so I'm sort of back to where I was. even before this started because when I was doing the steroids and stuff after 2015, I wasn't feeling 100%. I was never really feeling good because it wasn't natural. So I would say it goes back like more than 10 years. I feel better now than I did. Probably the same I felt like 20 years ago or something. I think it's a really exciting time for you. You know, you have so much earned wisdom from all of these experiences. and you're kind of back. You got this book coming out. You've got the documentary about a month later.

The book comes out September 22nd, I think, and then the documentary comes out in October. This documentary, I mean, this is a journey unto itself. Like, that was something that began a long time ago, prior to all the cancer and all that. And then, you know, all kinds of ups and downs. But, you know, is really a firsthand account, you know, shot on iPhones, but you know, your wife and you, a lot of that aspect of it that now, you know,

tells like this more full story. And I think these two pieces together and just, you know, how kind of like comfortable you are in your own skin. I mean, that really comes across. I think this is going to be a really golden, you know, era for you. I'm excited to see what comes of all of this. And really for wider audiences to really know who you. you are, you know, like your life is really, you've lived such a remarkable life. And when you look back on it, like there must be gratitude and awe and wonder. But maybe we can end with, you know, what you would say to young Hans, you know, who's getting, you know, kind of knocked about by his dad, this little kid.

Like what is the message you want to give to him now? I would say, no, don't worry. It's going to be fine. Come here, I'll give you a hug. Give you a hug. Yeah. Because you can be your own parent, you know, to that inner child now. Yeah.

Yeah. Give him some warmth and compassion. And, you know, you still has to suffer through everything, but at least you would have feel like, oh, oh, this big guy really loves me and cares about me, you know. so that would have been nice but I do that almost every day when I do my affirmations you know I try to

I try to remind myself of those things that's beautiful man thanks it was a real honor to have you here today you know it really was I feel a kinship with you

like you're an old soul you know you really are and you too an artist and yeah that was very meaningful to me I really appreciate the openness and the candor that you brought to this experience. Thank you.

It was a great interview, a very unusual, special. And I understand that we share a few things in our past what you've told me. I hope people will, you know, maybe walk away with some, maybe some nuggets that they can apply in their own lives. I'm not worried about that at all. I think they got more than they bargained for. And there's even more in your book, Fights Worth Fighting, available everywhere, September 22nd. And the documentary, October 6th.

And also the book, you could pre-order it on Amazon. Yeah, please pre-order it now. We'll have links up in the show notes and in the description below the YouTube video. And I wish you well, man, best of luck. I think this is all going to be a big success for you, man. Thank you. Yeah, appreciate it. I'll hope we'll do it again.

Yeah. I'd love to. Anytime. Yeah. Thanks.