Nine things we learned from our evening with Jean-Claude Van Damme

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.

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His heroes as a kid were Tarzan and Tin Tin.

tintin

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.”

tarzan

He started in Martial Arts at 9, but considered himself “an emotional kid” until then. “I was a stallion of martial arts”. 

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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.

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Apparently was rewarded one of his earliest roles, in No Retreat, No Surrender, by kneeing someone in the lips while at the casting.

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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.

Jean-expendables

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.

JEAN-CLAUDE VAN DAMMEPhoto Credit: Philippe Graton

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Larry Heath

Founding Editor and Publisher of the AU review. Currently based in Toronto, Canada. You can follow him on Twitter @larry_heath or on Instagram @larryheath.