Rocky star Dolph Lundgren shared that he is feeling ‘very well’ after beating cancer last year, adding: ‘NED, they call it. No evidence of disease.’
He revealed in 2023 that he had been privately battling the condition for eight years, after receiving his initial diagnosis of lung cancer in 2015.
Although he was able to drive the illness into remission once, it recurred in 2020 and one doctor informed him he had only two to three years left to live.
Lundgren opted to get a second opinion and enter treatment, and announced last November that he had successfully defeated cancer yet again.
‘It feels good,’ the 67-year-old Swedish actor revealed this past weekend at the BAFTA TV Tea Party at The Maybourne Beverly Hills.
‘It was a tough fight to have for about five years. Actually, about three bad years, but now it’s better – so I’m back to normal, working out,’ he told People.
Rocky star Dolph Lundgren shared that he is feeling ‘very well’ after beating cancer last year, during an interview at the 2025 BAFTA TV Tea Party in Beverly Hills last weekend (pictured)
He noted his exercise regimen is no longer as strenuous as it used to be, although he insisted he is still capable of ‘everything’ he did prior to being diagnosed.
‘I’ve calmed down a little bit. I don’t stay out as late. I don’t work out as hard, but I do hit the gym four, five times a week,’ he said.
Lundgren, who shot to fame in the 1985 film Rocky IV as the title character’s Soviet rival Ivan Drago, said: ‘I am just a little kinder to myself physically, I think.’
The Stockholm native warmly added: ‘Every day, I’m more grateful for everything I have and everything the universe has given me, and I try to really enjoy the people I love – my kids and my wife and my friends.
He shares his daughters Ida, 29, and Greta, 23, with his first wife Anette Qviberg and has been married to his current wife Emma Krokdal since 2023.
‘It’s been a big eye-opener and it’s actually been a positive experience for me, I think. If I hadn’t had cancer, I may have done a crazy stunt and killed myself that way, because I was just a little bit too intense before.’
Lundgren took his secret cancer battle public in late 2023 with an interview on Graham Bensinger’s podcast, speculating whether his illness might be linked to the steroids he took during his career as an action star and bodybuilder.
‘I tried steroids back in the 80s, 90s. I don’t know if that is something to do with the cancer, of course it struck me as it could have something to do with it.’
He spoke to a camera in the hospital following an operation, saying surgeons ‘took out one tumor, then they took out another two they found and another three small ones’
Lundgren, who shot to fame in Rocky IV as the title character’s Soviet rival Ivan Drago (pictured), said: ‘I am just a little kinder to myself physically, I think’
He reflected: ‘I thought about it, you always think you’ve made a mistake. I think maybe there is some connection between testosterone therapy and cancer.’
On that episode, he explained that his cancer returned in 2020 after previously going into remission, whereupon he was given a grim prognosis.
‘In 2020, I was back in Sweden and I had some kind of acid reflux, I didn’t know what it was so I did an MRI. They found that there were a few more tumors around that area,’ explained the The Punisher actor.
‘They found one more tumor in the liver, so I was like aw s**** okay. At that point it started to hit me that this was something serious. The surgeon called me and said it had grown, it was too big, it had grown to the size of a small lemon.’
He recalled: ‘I asked them how long do I have left, I think he said two-three years but I could tell in his voice he thought it was less. I thought that was it for sure.’
After getting a second opinion, Lundgren plunged into at treatment regimen that was able to cause the tumors to shrink, and also went for surgery.
He spoke to a camera in the hospital following an operation, saying: ‘It’s the day after my surgery, they took out one tumor, then they took out another two they found and another three small ones. Hopefully it’s cleaned out, if it dies, it dies.’
Last November he announced: ‘Health update – finally cancer free with gratefulness and excitement for a bright future. Thanks for all your support always.’
