Jean-Claude Van Damme

Universally known as “The Muscles from Brussels,” Jean-Claude Van Damme (birthname: Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg) is an affectionately mocked but adored action movie star, with roots in competitive martial arts. After becoming the number-two martial arts fighter in the world in the early 1980s. By 1982, Van Damme left his native Belgium for Los Angeles, where he pursued a career in action movies.

With connections like pal Chuck Norris and Hong Kong action director Corey Yuen (who directed him in No Retreat, No Surrender (1986)), Van Damme landed his first leading role, in Bloodsport (1988), whose $50 million worldwide gross on a $1.5 million budget made it the most profitable 1988 film for then-hot indie producer Cannon Films.

After Van Damme’s sab at sci-fi with Cyborg (1989), Van Damme starred in the first of the hit Kickboxer franchise (1989), earning $50 million globally, and securing Van Damme as a popular action star specializing in martial arts skills. His signature non-martial arts move—exposing his naked butt—began with the action drama, Death Warrant (1990), written by The Dark Knight screenwriter David S. Goyer. 

With Roland Emmerich’s Universal Soldier (1992), co-starring Dolph Lundgren, Van Damme confirmed that while he had a good U.S. following, his global fan base was huge, driving a $102 million worldwide—two-thirds of that returned earned outside the U.S. Hong Kong writer-director John Woo cast Van Damme in Woo’s first Hollywood movie, Hard Target (1994), with Lance Henriksen, followed by director Peter Hyams working with Van Damme on the runaway hit, Timecop (1994), another triple-digit million-dollar box office winner around the world.

Hyams and Van Damme reunited the next year for the firefighter action movie, Sudden Death, with Powers Boothe, Raymond J. Barry, and Dorian Harewood. As he did with Woo, Van Damme provided the box office status for Woo’s fellow Hong Kong movie maestros, Ringo Lam (Maximum Risk in 1996) and Tsui Hark (Double Team in 1997, followed by Hark’s Knock Off in 1998, with Rob Schneider and Paul Sorvino).

Van Damme used his fame to turn behind the camera for his directing debut in the martial arts movie, The Quest (1996), in which he starred with Roger Moore. The Ringo Lam-Jean-Claude Van Damme partnership continued with Replicant (2001), with Michael Rooker, and In Hell (2003). 

The box office returns for Van Damme’s movies diminished over time, and critical lambasting of his disposable action vehicles became commonplace. The drop in the value of Van Damme’s brand was reversed with Mabrouk el Mechri’s acclaimed JCVD (2008), a meta-movie about a declining action star played by the man nicknamed JCVD, marking Van Damme’s return to Belgium.

Van Damme failed to exploit this success for breakout hits in fresh genre movies, although he did voice work in DreamWorks Animation’s hit, Kung Fun Panda 2 (2011), and performed in French comedies such as Beur sur la ville (2011). Van Damme played the heavy in the action all-star lineup of Simon West’s hit sequel, The Expendables 2 (2012), with Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lungren, Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Liam Hemsworth.

Once again, Van Damme joined forces with veteran director Peter Hyams for the American-Canadian actioner, Enemies Closer (2013), with Orlando Jones, and once again played the voice of Master Croc in Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016). Van Damme tended during the phase to return to known properties, such as Universal Soldier sequels, and a two-film reboot of Kickboxer—first, Kickboxer: Vengeance (2016), and then Kickboxer: Retaliation (2018), with Christopher Lambert and Mike Tyson.

The familiar pairing of Van Damme and Lundgren was repeated a fifth—Black Water (2018)—and sixth time, with Illumination Entertainment’s Despicable Me franchise movie, Minions (2022), co-starring Steve Carell.