Dolph Lundgren: Movie Star, Chemical Engineer, Cancer Survivor, Vodka Entrepreneur
The other week, I had the chance to interview 1980s action movie legend Dolph Lundgren about his new vodka label, Hard Cut Vodka. He couldn’t have been any kinder, so go listen to the Mostly Occasionally episode. It's only 20 minutes, so not a huge time commitment!
Dolph once said, "If he dies, he dies" as Ivan Drago. Still one of the coldest lines ever delivered on screen.
I told him about how awesome it was to watch Rocky IV movie with my dad growing up. So over-the-top, Cold War Regan-era ridiculousness. The training scene gives me chills, and the part where the Soviet crowd starts cheering for Rocky makes me laugh. It rocks so much.
We talked Rocky IV, Bond, Creed II, and his nearly decade-long battle with cancer (he’s now NED—no evidence of disease). His perspective was sharp and surprisingly tender.
Then this past Friday, at Dolph's personal invitation, I found myself at the Hard Cut launch party at Petit Ermitage, a members-only rooftop scene in West Hollywood with a pool, a view, and the kind of lighting that makes you consider Botox.
I wore my Nick Fouquet hat—picked up years ago at a whiskey tasting in Venice (the California one). I’m not really a hat guy, but certain fancy pants Los Angeles nights demand an outrageous hat to fit in. Naturally, I was the only one wearing one. Clearly I spend too much time around music industry people. They wear big goofy hats to dinner and Erewhon. Movie stars, I guess, are far more dignified. Probably because they want people to see their face. You know, for the craft.
There was an ice luge. Dolph got behind the bar and did some light bartending. A Swedish reality show filmed the whole thing, though no one flipped a table—disappointing, honestly. Isn’t that where all the drama’s supposed to happen?
I ran into Oliver Cooper from Project X, and drinks legend Dan Dunn—who I first interviewed back in the day when wrote a column called "The Imbiber" in Playboy, when people read other people's thoughts on paper instead of screens. The links to that expired on BroBible years ago. I told him that, and he chuckled. Said he didn’t remember it at all. Then we talked about the times he hung out in Hunter S. Thompson’s kitchen in his early 20s.
Anyway, this one was fun. Hope you give it a listen.
I’ll be sure to check in more often. Sorry I’ve been slacking—got a few too many balls in the air at the moment, and I’m exhausted just thinking about all the channels I have to promote them on for anyone to maybe care. Honestly, I don’t even want to hear from me that much either.
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