Last month, Jean-Claude Van Damme came to Australia for two special Q&As in Sydney and Melbourne. We learned a lot about the iconic action star while he was on stage at Sydney’s The Star, in conversation with Richard Wilkins. Here’s just a nine of those tidbids of knowledge we took away from the night:
He can do the splits in between two moving trucks.
His heroes as a kid were Tarzan and Tin Tin.
Before he became a movie star, he opened a gym in his home country of Belgium “to become Tarzan. And flexible like antelope and strong like a gorilla.”
He started in Martial Arts at 9, but considered himself “an emotional kid” until then. “I was a stallion of martial arts”.
Before he went to Hollywood, he went to Hong Kong. There, he saw Jackie Chan for 5 seconds and didn’t see him again for 25 years.
Apparently was rewarded one of his earliest roles, in No Retreat, No Surrender, by kneeing someone in the lips while at the casting.
JCVD didn’t understand the first Expendables film when he was originally offered it, “(Stallone) lost me, something about a tower?”. He did figure it out in time to make the second movie though.
He does a great Sylvester Stallone impersonation.
Want to become a “wanting, winning, dreaming machine” like Van Damme? Well, one of his last tips for us was this: “always train your buttock and your legs.” Words to live by.
Photo Credit: Philippe Graton
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