Dolph Lundgren

Hans "Dolph" Lundgren is a Swedish actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and martial artist.Lundgren received a degree in chemical engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in the early 1980s and a master's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney in 1982. He holds the rank of 3rd dan black belt in Kyokushin karate and was European champion in 1980-81. While in Sydney, he became a bodyguard for Jamaican singer Grace Jones and began a relationship with her. He received a Fulbright scholarship to MIT and moved to Boston. Jones convinced him to leave the university and move to New York City to be with her and begin acting, where, after a short stint as a model and bouncer at the Manhattan nightclub The Limelight, Lundgren got a small debut role as a KGB henchman in the James Bond film A View to a Kill, in which Jones starred.Lundgren's breakthrough came when he starred in Rocky IV in 1985 as the imposing Soviet boxer Ivan Drago. Since then, he has starred in more than 40 films, almost all of them in the action genre. He portrayed He-Man in the 1987 science fantasy film Masters of the Universe and Frank Castle in the 1989 film The Punisher. In the early 1990s, he also appeared in films such as Dark Angel (1990), Universal Soldier (1992), Joshua Tree (1993), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), and Blackjack (1998). In 2004, he directed his first film, The Defender, and subsequently directed The Mechanik (2005), Missionary Man (2007), Command Performance (2009), and Icarus (2010), also starring in the latter.