Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren are Expendables co-stars who like to banter with one another. In an interview with Looper, Lundgren shared that one of the best ‘behind-the-scenes moments’ while filming the first Expendable movie was when Stallone played an unforgettable prank on him.
Before The Expendable movies, Lundgren and Stallone had previously starred in Rocky IV together and evidently have since formed a close enough relationship for professional hijinks. While promoting his new thriller movie Castle Falls, Lundgren revealed that while filming one of the first scenes in the 2010 film The Expendables, Stallone, who plays Barney Ross in the franchise, decided to have some fun on set at his expense.
“On the first one, there is the first scene of the movie. It was great to work with Sly again because I worked on setting it out in the first scene in the movie. I’m telling this joke that he wrote, of course, and then I show up, and I blow this pirate away,” Lundgren recalled. “So, I tell him this joke. And try like four or five takes, and Sly is like [goes into a Sylvester Stallone impersonation] ‘Do the joke.’ Finally, 15 takes. This is driving me crazy. I could kill this guy.”
“Embarrassing. He was like, ‘OK.’ Fine. I got over it,” the actor continued. “And then I show up for ADR — where you do like a little voice replacement. So it’s first up, and Sly is like [does impersonation again] ‘Guess which take?’ And it was the first one the whole time.”
So, essentially after making Lundgren do 15 takes, Stallone surprised his co-star by using the first take – a simple but frustrating joke, to say the least.