- Keep on dreaming, dream works.
That's why DreamWorks, Spielberg.
(upbeat piano music)
Hi, this is Jean-Claude Van Damme,
and this is the story of my life.
(cheerful energetic music)
We have a kid from Belgium,
who was born in downtown.
It's like the Bronx of Belgium.
And I love cartoons.
My grandma took me once a week,
once every two weeks.
And at that time it was a road, Place de Brouckère,
and we chose the movie carefully,
because you know, my father is selling flowers.
So he is buying a rose for two dollars,
and he's selling it for four dollars.
So he wanted to make sure that it was a cartoon
like "Dumbo," like, you know,
"Snow White," and stuff like that.
And the first movie I saw with my father
was "Lawrence of Arabia."
That was like, the blue sky and the land, and
it was like, it was epic.
And then it kept on going this way.
Because I was not really with other people at school,
I liked to spend time with the adults.
In martial arts, my teacher was 35 years old, I was nine.
There was no karate for kids at that time.
And all the karate guys, they're all like 17, 18, 20.
So, I grew up with lots of maturity around me.
(upbeat electronic music)
Dancing, it started in discotheque.
At the age of 16, I was out on the street
with guys like 21, 22.
Using the hips, shoulder, everything,
and I just feel the music.
And then I was offered, at the age of 18 and a half,
a spot here in the Bejart, here in Paris.
Maurice Bejart.
Martial arts, it's very good.
Give you lots of discipline, and ballet, same.
But everything is more correct,
and you have to maintain straight, and with a smile.
So it's much more difficult than martial arts.
Weightlifting, I became too big, I was 99 kilo.
My arms became big, and also, when you have big triceps,
not like now, but then you dancing, you know,
it's hanging there, yep.
So, I did go via martial arts.
I opened a gym.
I made very good money, I took $3,000 in my pocket,
and I left for the US.
I said to myself, "If I cannot make it with $3,000,
how can I make it with five or 10 or hundred?"
I need to suffer to succeed.
(energetic dance music)
So I go to America, I fail, came back, go back again.
I fail, came back.
I started in France first,
I made my first movie with Bernard Giraudeau.
I was fired. I came at the wrong time.
Thank God.
Then I met Menachem Golan.
He was one of the chairmen of Cannon.
He said to me, "You know what?
come back in America" in 1984 and a half,
he gave me "Bloodsport,"
so I was made for that movie.
(wall cracking)
Because I did martial arts all my life,
the split is there, the kicking.
Years of training, because I did that,
in "Bloodsport," clack, clack, clack, clack, clack,
because of that.
(hero grunts) (crowd cheering)
It was like a Van Damme billboard, basically, this movie.
I didn't like the movie, I was like,
hiding in the theater of a Chinese theater.
I only saw, I saw only a few people.
And then I start to feel so sad for the movie,
and for myself.
And I said, "My career, first movie, I'm out."
And then, the movie did well, but I didn't realize.
(hero groaning) (crowd cheering)
I brought lots of people. Peter Hyams was good,
great director, we did "Timecop" together.
And he didn't want to work with me
because he thought I was a karate guy, right?
So, I took him for a dinner,
and we talk about arts.
And then he made the film.
(truck honking)
I worked with Emmerich.
It was the first movie, I brought him from Germany.
And John Woo, I brought from Hong Kong.
And Sly is a good guest, Mr. Sly,
I called him Mr. Stallone on the set.
And when I don't like something, I just say it.
So I did have a problem with the fight scene
on "The Expendable," a helicopter, me, throwing a chain.
I go through the chain, I could see the cockpit,
and bam, the helicopter come down,
a circle of fire, and then Sly with an, I say "Stallone,
"Sly, we have three days to shoot this scene.
How are you gonna do it?"
And he go, "Okay, then you go
and choreograph the fucking fight scene."
So I wrote a letter, "Dear Mr. Stallone,
"Love your movies, I'm a big fan.
I believe that the final fight should be mano a mano."
And I've put this paper in my pocket,
and it's like, so I go to his trailer.
"Come in, kid."
So I go inside his trailer, and I'm trying to,
"I don't want to disturb you, I know you have a lot to do,"
and I go to these jeans, and I don't see the letter.
"You come on, sit down, let me know."
And I told him, you know, "You have big forearms,
"you know, you have this.
"When I was young, I slipped under to go bar, and bar!
"You're like George Foreman, I'm like Muhammad Ali,
they want to see mano to mano."
"Yeah, okay, Terry."
And so, he was very engaged.
And then, finally, we did a fight together.
(men grunting)
My wish is one day I will be able to do a documentary
of how did I do?
Because if you ask me today, "Can you redo what you've done,"
I will say, "I cannot, bro, I cannot, it's just too hard."
Life go fast.
(men grunting)
I'm lucky in this business, you know?
It's not like a eight-to-five job.
When I'm home, my dog's around me, I watch movies,
write some stuff, look at YouTube
on very specific subjects that I like.
And that's why I need to have movies like that
to take me out of this thinking more sometimes.
(men grunting and crashing)
Thank you for watching,
and please check out "The Last Mercenary" on Netflix.
Whoo!
(electronic dance music)