Action Star Dolph Lundgren Goes Behind The Camera To Direct ‘Castle Falls’

Although he first became an action-film fixture in the ‘80s, thanks to Rocky IV, Masters of the Universe, Showdown in Little Tokyo, and a plethora of other films, Dolph Lundgren’s hasn’t kept a super high profile of late. Those who’ve followed his career, however, known that Lundgren has never stopped acting. More than that, he also began to move behind the camera as well, starting in 2004 with his directorial debut, The Defender, and directing half a dozen films over as many years.

Despite steadily adding to his filmography as an actor, however, it’s been just over a decade since the last time Lundgren was at the helm of a motion picture, but now he’s back with his latest directorial effort, Castle Falls, in which he stars alongside Scott Adkins. Lundgren hopped on the phone with Decider to talk about getting back behind the camera again and the process of putting together the film, and he found a few minutes to talk about some of his earlier films as well.

DECIDER: The last time I talked to you was quite some time ago, yet it’s also right around the last time you actually directed a film. Once you got back behind the camera, was it like riding a bicycle?

Dolph Lundgren: To some degree, yeah. I mean, I experienced another 11 years of filmmaking in the meantime…and, of course, just life has been interesting since then! I think I felt more comfortable this time. But it was a tough shoot, with COVID and everything else, and we only had 17 days. But apart from that, I felt comfortable with it, and I’m happy with the result. I think it was a real test for me, but I’d like to do more films. I feel like this one was really hard, but it’s gonna get easier…I hope!

I definitely enjoyed it, and not knowing anything about the film going in, seeing your co-star (Scott Adkins) starting out with the kickboxing scene, I thought, “Oh, is this going to be like Creed, where Dolph helps the ‘kid’ get back in fighting shape?” But, no, that was a red herring of sorts.

Yeah, that’s a different film. [Laughs.]

I know you didn’t write the film, but how did you end up being attached to direct? Did it just land in your lap, or did someone pitch it to you?

What happened was, Scott and I had another project that we were going to do together, and that fell through. So then I was asking for two-handers, and this script came across from my agency, but my character, Ericson, was a bad guy, and…Mike was still a fighter, but it was different. And I wanted to rework it so that we both had motivation to get this money, so that we’d work against each other and then together. So we went through a few revisions on the script, and then Scott was in, and I felt comfortable directing it. This was before COVID even started, but I felt like I had a bunch to bring to the table, with the action and the acting as well, along with my experience, and…I think it turned out to be a good choice!

You and Scott have some great back-and-forth moments in the film. It’s a fun rapport.

Oh, thank you. Yeah, some of that was in the script, some of it we added. It’s a fine line, because it’s kind of a drama, so you’ve got serious aspects of the movie, but then you’ve got the fun aspects of it, and you want to try and keep that balance, which isn’t easy. Especially not since we shot during COVID, so we had a bunch of shutdowns because of that, and you kind of have to move things around in the schedule… Sometimes you’re not sure which way you’re going! But I was fortunate in post-production to have some extra time to tweak some of those things and make it work.

As you say, it’s definitely more of a drama than anything else, but once you and Scott start working together, there are definitely some buddy-comedy moments. 

Yeah, well, of course, the first half was setting up who these people are and why they want the money and all that, so it pushes a lot of the action to towards the end. With the resources I had, I didn’t want to blow it early on. At least this way we could go out big. [Laughs.]

I wanted to ask you about a few things from your back catalog. Because it continues to be available on various streaming services, I’m curious: how do you look back on the experience of making Masters of the Universe?

Well, that was early in my career, I’d just played a bad guy Soviet killing machine [in Rocky IV], and now I was going to play this…American hero, I guess. I was basically playing a toy. [Laughs.] In those days, it was considered a huge risk to your career. It wasn’t like now, where everybody wants to be a superhero and they have more money for the budget. So that was one of the first that was like that, and it was a tough shoot because Cannon Films was going out of business, so they had to change the budget, rewrite the script, and everything. But on the whole, I have fond memories. It’s one of the few films I’ve made that’s for kids. There’s no real violence, no blood… It was a good time. It was a difficult time because I had to deal with the stardom and everything from starring in the movie, but I think the result is pretty cool. And right now I’m filming in the UK, where Masters of the Universe was a big hit, so more people recognize me here from that than they do in some other countries.

Because of the unfortunate situation on the set of Rust, Brandon Lee’s name has been back in the news again recently. I was just wondering what you remembered about working with him on Showdown in Little Tokyo.

Well, I have great memories of Brandon. He was a great guy, and he was a good fighter. I mean, he was half-Swedish. I believe his mom, Linda Lee, was first-generation American, but her family was Swedish. So we had that in common. And I became very friendly with him and stayed friendly even after we did the movie. So I was shocked when I heard that he’d been shot on a movie set. I still remember the call. He was a guy who would’ve been a huge star. But it was a fun movie to do with him, and he was a very special guy.

Lastly, with Sylvester Stallone having released his director’s cut of Rocky IV and doing press for the film, I have to ask: did you realize quite how badly you’d hurt him when you two fought?

Well, he mentions it every time he’s on a talk show, so I get to hear it quite a bit! But, no, I didn’t realize it. I just followed orders! Whatever he said. “Hit me in the body,” or whatever it was. You know, we both got hit. But then I just heard he was in the hospital, so…I’m glad he made it. [Laughs.] And I’m glad he recut the picture. I hope it’s gonna be good. I haven’t seen it yet, because I’m in London, but I’m going to watch it tomorrow!

Castle Falls is in theaters, on demand, and digital on December 3.

Will Harris (@NonStopPop) has a longstanding history of doing long-form interviews with random pop culture figures for the A.V. Club, Vulture, and a variety of other outlets, including Variety. He’s currently working on a book with David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. (And don’t call him Shirley.)