Jean-Claude Van Damme in 1988 Photo: Sygma
Who will win in a fight between Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal? Action movie fans have been pondering this particular mystery for 30-plus years, ever since its Hollywood heyday when Seagal began trashing Van Damme. Van Damme offers an answer without even asking the question. When I bring up their long-standing rivalry, Van Damme gets to the point. And with pleasure. “If we fight, I run faster than him—a lot faster,” he says of Seagal. “I would run away. He will try to catch me, he will lose his form. I come back and fight. Do you like this technique?
During our hour-long video call, Van Damme – “Muscles from Brussels” or “JC” to his friends – proves that he's a master of slightly crazy talk (“I spent 10 years on YouTube, consuming whatever I wanted”); insider information about his fellow action icons (“Arnold, the tough guy… Tricky, tough guy… Jason Statham, the tough guy”); unfiltered opinions (“When you hear on TV, ‘They did their tricks,’ most of it is bullshit…”); unexpected flattery (“you have a very kind face… kind eyes”); and pearls of wisdom in beautiful broken English (“I am still young at heart, but I have age”)
He also found the formula for his success. “People know me because I kick ass,” Van Damme says. “The action is very international. Everyone understands the blow to the face.” You can't argue with that. The formula that made Jean-Claude Van Damme a star was not complicated. A gifted martial artist known for his kicks, splits and firm buttocks (all of which appeared regularly in his 1990s films, as if under contract), Van Damme was the fastest and most beautiful star of a generation of totemic stars. action icons. He stood next to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren and – yes – his old pal Steven Seagal. “The Big Five,” says Van Damme.
The title alone – Van Damme – characterizes a particular genre of action films: low-budget, impressive VHS favorites – testosterone stuff for teenage boys and dude guys. Make no mistake, however: Van Damme was the rightful leader of Hollywood. Time Cop, his peak in 1994, earned more than $100 million.
Jean-Claude Van Damme in his debut film of 1988 “Bloodsport”. : Alamy
But Van Damme has slipped down the leaderboard at an alarming rate – a decline driven in part by an addiction to 10 grams of cocaine a day and his demands for a salary. Van Damme now shoots most of his films outside of Hollywood. “I'm an outsider,” he says.
Grateful for his career, Van Damme has thanked me several times for being a fan of his films. I think you must be kidding. I'm 40 years old and grew up greedy for the cruel treasures of the local video store. There's hardly a person of my generation who isn't fascinated by Van Damme in some way, be it the brutal showdowns, the hardcore fun (see him punching a snake in Hard Target) or the heavily accented actor's awkward performances. a bygone era of the genre. “I start out as a bad actor,” he says, before quickly correcting himself. “Not a bad actor. I'm starting out as a martial arts sensation.”
Thirty-five years after Bloodsport, his breakthrough film for which he earned just $25,000, Jean-Claude Van Damme seems confident in his fame: a man who takes great pleasure in himself. He's also a much better actor than his old school hits would suggest: “If you put me in Scorsese, I'll do well,” he says.
However, Jean-Claude Van Damme is not here to talk about cinema. Not really. He launches his own brand of Irish whiskey, Old Oak. Van Damme was looking for a whiskey partner when a friend pointed him to a new label. Van Damme is now co-owner of Old Oak and talks about the brand. “If you want to learn Chinese boxing or kung fu, go to China,” he says. “Karate, go to Japan. Savate, you are going to France. If I want whiskey, I want the original – Irish.”
Van Damme has lived in Hong Kong for the past 21 years, but when we speak he's wrapped in a hipster scarf in his native Belgium. When I pepper him with questions about Bloodsport, he turns the conversation back to Old Oak whiskey—with a knowing grin—and waves the bottle at me from his side of the video call. He's thinking about making a TV show about the launch of Old Oak. And Van Damme knows how to promote a product. In 2011, he spoofed muscles and a mullet image in a series of Coors Light mountaintop commercials; in 2013 it split its brand between two Volvo trucks. “When I split up Volvo, they sold so much,” he says, “that they were up 20 percent in a year…Coors in England became one of the top brands in the United States.”
Born Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg, he was “not very physically gifted” as a child. But he did Shotokan karate, kickboxing and ballet. At 17, he won the Mr. Belgium bodybuilding competition and opened his own (very successful) gym. At 21, he left for Los Angeles to become a movie star. “I slept on the streets, stole food and did all sorts of crazy things to survive,” he says. His first role was as a “gay karateka” in the 1984 film Monaco Forever. “Did you see this?” he is asking. (I don't) “So sad. They paid me, I don't know, 15 or 20 dollars a day – for one day of filming.”
Jean-Claude Van Damme with a bottle of his own Old Oak whiskey. Photo: John Broadbent
Van Damme's big break was the lead role in the film Bloodsport, about an underground martial arts tournament. Released on February 26, 1988, Bloodsport was a box office success. “It was a good movie,” says Van Damme. But “Bloodsport” had an impact – it inspired the video game “Mortal Kombat” and a popular movie among UFC fighters. If timing had been different, Van Damme could have continued to fight in the UFC cage. “What I regret is that the UFC was late, brother,” he says. “With my legs… those 360-degree kicks, they didn't see it coming.”
Van Damme often returns to his feet. They were part of the secret to his fame – the ability to perform jumps and kicks without the need for a stuntman. “I was a newbie,” he says of his success. “I came at the right time, in the right place. Chuck [Norris] left. Bruce Lee was dead. I was lucky too. And I believed in my dream. That's why I'm here.”
One of the most famous Bloodsport fans is Donald Trump. “An incredible, fantastic movie,” Trump told a New Yorker reporter in 1997. The future US President taught 13-year-old Eric Trump how to quickly move on to all fight scenes.
Van Damme is well aware of Trump's love for Bloodsport. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, he told me,” says Van Damme. “He likes The Godfather for the story and Bloodsport for the action.” And there is another famous fan. “And Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader,” says Van Damme. “This is his favorite movie. The leader loves Bloodsport – madly, madly, madly.”
Jean-Claude Van Damme in Cannes, 1993. Photo: GettyBack in 2016, Van Damme spoke out in support of Trump's presidential campaign. “We need Donald Trump right now,” he told TMZ. However, on a French TV show, Van Damme said he didn't think Trump would rise to power because of families like the Rothschilds and Rockefellers – conspiracy theorists, short for the Illuminati. Is Van Damme still a Trump fan? “I don’t know who’s taller than him on Earth,” Van Damme says, launching into a whimsical speech. “I know that the school needs a director… several teachers… and students… I don’t know who the director is.” He means that he doesn't know who rules the world. (I think.)
Bloodsport was followed by a string of Van Damme heavyweights: Kickboxer, Double Tap, Nowhere to Run and John Woo's Hollywood debut, Hard Target. In 1992, Van Damme teamed with Dolph Lundgren to create Universal Soldier, an ultra-violent sci-fi action film about dead Vietnamese soldiers resurrected as genetically enhanced, hardened psychos. At the Cannes Film Festival that year, Van Damme and Lundgren got into a fight on the red carpet, a publicity stunt created by Van Damme. “I was at the Cannes hotel with Dolph,” he recalls. “We had a drink together and I say, ‘We should push each other on the red carpet’… it worked!”
His feud with Seagal was not a publicity stunt. It began in 1991 when Seagal questioned the legality of Van Damme's fighting efforts. Sylvester Stallone later told a story about a party he threw in 1997. Van Damme and Seagal came face to face, and Van Damme invited Seagal to fight on the street. “I waited two hours, but he never came,” Van Damme later said. Seagal claimed that Van Damme was drunk – “drooling, foaming at the mouth” – and that he would fight Van Damme when he sobered up. But as Stallone said, the mighty Steve Seagal bottled it up. “Childish things, childish things,” Van Damme says, looking back. “People told me he didn’t speak so highly of me. I don’t know why.”
Van Damme is certainly prone to his own eccentricities: in 2010, he attended a hand-to-hand fight with Vladimir Putin; in 2016, he took a five-day spiritual tour of Israel, which sparked controversy online; and he is rarely seen in public without a pocket dog clutched in his hands. Seagal, on the other hand, seems to have fallen into complete madness: he is not just Putin's buddy, but his complete supporter and Russian citizen – purveyor of strange statements and unwatchable films. Van Damme treats Seagal diplomatically (at first). “In the first film of his that I saw, I said, 'This guy is going to make it, he's very charismatic.' Van Damme then lands a killer left hand. “Even now, with his excess weight, he has a way of speaking like Steven Seagal.”
Van Damme recalls that Peter Guber, the former head of Sony Pictures, wanted to promote a fight between the two. “They had the idea of having a fight between me and Steven at the Mirage [casino resort in Las Vegas],” he says. “Twenty million each. He didn't take the fight.”
This was the golden age of action movies, when muscles were big and fat. Henchman's necks were easily and regularly broken. One-liners were part of their arsenal, and masculinity was enhanced to the limit. “Yes, it was a golden age because there was no CGI at the time—you had to do it yourself,” says Van Damme. “It felt more real because it was true.”
It's true that Van Damme isn't anti-CGI – he likes Marvel films – but he does like real action. And he's a staunch advocate for stuntmen. “I'm very proud of them because they make me look very strong,” he says, laughing. “But when I do kicks, that’s my specialty, no stunts. By the way, guys, take a slow motion so they can see it's me! We need stuntmen. The stuntmen are great.”
Jean-Claude Van Damme with his Expendables 2 co-stars Dolph Lundgren, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Photo: WireImage
Like other action stars, he believes stuntmen need an Oscar. “Why they never gave the award to the best stuntman of the year, I don’t understand.”
In 1994, Van Damme starred in the films Time Cop and Street Fighter. According to Street Fighter director Steven E. de Souza, Van Damme became addicted to cocaine during filming. (Van Damme also had an affair with co-star Kylie Minogue. “Sweet kiss, beautiful lovemaking,” he later said.) Street Fighter was panned by critics, but made $100 million at the box office.
By the late 1990s, action star Van Damme had been largely supplanted by CGI blockbusters and regular-sized heroes like Keanu Reeves and Tom Cruise. Double Team, which starred Van Damme opposite basketball bad boy Dennis Rodman, was a box office failure and began Van Damme's fall from the A-list. He was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
In 2012, he admitted that he was blacklisted by asking for $20 million for the film – the same as then-Hollywood leader Jim Carrey. “Everything I touched made money,” Van Damme said. “Jim Carrey was paid a fortune. And I wanted to play with the system. Like an idiot. Funny.”
Jean-Claude Van Damme in “Death Warrant” Photo: Moviepix
Now he offers a different point of view: he did not realize himself at the zenith of Hollywood. “When I touched the ceiling, I got bored,” he says. “To be honest, it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do. I was always in the dojo. I loved training. That's why there are ups and downs. Then I left the Hollywood circle and moved to Hong Kong.”
Even though his films went unnoticed or went straight to video, he was able to produce something with the impact it needed – look at his “better than them” attitude. -there should be sequels to “Universal Soldier”.
Van Damme's supposed comeback came in 2008 with the film JCVD, in which he plays a desperate, desperate, financially broke version of himself. Trapped in a post office robbery, Van Damme makes fun of his own personality. (In one scene, he says he lost the role to Steven Seagal because Seagal agreed to cut off his tail.) The climax is not the fight, but the fourth devastating monologue. Van Damme reveals himself: addiction, women, A-list failure. This is like a sharp response to any criticism of his game. Van Damme recalls how director Mabrouk El Mechri told him: “You don’t have to be Van Damme in this film. You must be willing to change yourself. You have to be someone more honest than you are in real life.”
Van Damme in Saint-Tropez, 1996. Photo: Rex Features
“In four months, I became this guy,” says Van Damme. “When the film was finished, it took me a couple of weeks to come back inside.”
The film was supposed to be the start of Van Damme's renaissance, although he missed the promotional tour because one of his dogs had an accident. stroke. The film, although received critical acclaim, was a flop.
Van Damme returned to Hollywood from time to time, voicing characters in Kung Fu Panda and Minions, and playing the villain in 2012's The Expendables 2 – imaginatively titled Jean Vilain – which ends in a thunderous fight with Sly Stallone. “On screen there are people driving Teslas,” he says. “Beautiful, perfect computer graphics. And some people might want to go back to manual shifting for a while. Some people. You know what I'm saying as a metaphor? I am a changer.”
The latest installment, The Expendables 4, just bombed at the box office. Van Damme doesn't know why. I guess maybe because Van Damme isn't there. He was killed off in the second film, but Stallone teased that Van Damme might return at some point as Jean Vilain's twin Claude – a nod to Van Damme's dual roles in Double Tap. “Yeah! That’s what Stallone told me,” Van Damme laughs. Well, there’s always Expendables 5. “Or 25,” he says.
Jean-Claude Van Damme in Timecop Photo: Alamy
Van Damme also missed out on roles in other mega-franchises. “They want me to be in Fast and the Furious,” he says. And what a casting it will be. “But Vin Diesel said: “No, I don’t need him.”
Van Damme returned to the role in the 2016 Amazon series Jean-Claude Van Johnson, in which he plays a different version of himself – this time as a secret agent. There are still jokes at his expense – all of them very stupid – but, as in JCVD, there is also a sense of melancholy about his fading career. Does this reflect reality? How did he cope with the descent from the heights of Timecop? “Don’t be afraid to say it,” he says, knowing what I really mean: Was it difficult to accept failure after massive success? “Yes, it was.”
He also describes the toll of his career: “I lived in hotels for about 30 years… At one time, yes, too far from my family. I finish the film and go promote the next one. New, next. New, next. I became a hotel manager. There is no more home. I made 100 films in different countries: from Europe to Kazakhstan, from China to Japan. I shot in Indonesia, Australia, Africa… South Africa, East Africa, West Africa. I became distant. When you travel a lot, you meet a lot of people – then rich people, they want you next to them to take some photos. They make you all kinds of promises. So you become more aware, not more intelligent. You start to lose a kind of trust. This business, the film business, is not easy.” He doesn't directly address his past addictions, but he hints at getting rid of any negative influences. “I like to surround myself with good people,” he says.
I'd be remiss if I didn't ask Jean-Claude Van Damme the question action fans have been asking for 35 years: What's his favorite Van Damme movie? He points to a 2018 Belgian film. Bouncer. He plays a strip club bouncer who is drawn into crime while trying to raise his daughter. It's grit and hustle—bursts of breakneck action tempered by dark, uneven execution.
Cinema is now in a different place. CGI-heavy CGI franchises have consumed multiplexes, while real action stars – martial artists and stuntmen doing their own stunts – are filmed in relative obscurity on DVD and VOD. But Van Damme is happy with his participation. “I make one film a year,” he says, later adding: “I’m kind of my own boss. It's me and two or three actors. This is a village, not a city.” In films like Dodgeball, he does some of the most interesting work of his career. “I’m a good actor,” says Van Damme. “That's all I know.”
It looks like Jean-Claude Van Damme still has a lot of fight left in him. “I don’t regret anything,” he says. “I don't want to die tomorrow, that's for sure.”
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