Lundgren, Schwarzenegger Unite for Charity as Action Stars Celebrate Decades of Friendship

Dolph Lundgren arrived at Novikov Beverly Hills on a Friday night in September, his wife Emma Krokdal at his side, both dressed for the occasion. The 68-year-old actor wore a black suit and white dress shirt paired with gray sneakers. Krokdal, 30, chose a black one-shoulder chiffon top with an asymmetrical satin miniskirt and beige sequinned heels. They were there for Arnold Schwarzenegger's All-Stars for Change fundraiser, an event supporting the after-school youth nonprofit Schwarzenegger founded in 1992.

Lundgren did more than attend. He stepped behind the bar that night, mixing cocktails for guests using his own vodka brand, Hard Cut. He and Krokdal had co-founded the company in 2019, officially launching it in March 2025. The couple, married since July 2023 at their villa in Mykonos, Greece, beamed for photographs at the upscale Italian-Mediterranean restaurant in Beverly Hills.

The evening was a public celebration of a friendship that has spanned more than four decades. Lundgren and Schwarzenegger have been close friends and workout partners since meeting in the mid-1980s, when Sylvester Stallone cast Lundgren as the Soviet boxer Ivan Drago in "Rocky IV." The two men later appeared together in the "Expendables" franchise—in 2010, 2012, and 2014 installments. Lundgren posted about the event on Instagram the following day, thanking Novikov and Hard Cut Vodka for supporting his friend's charity work.

But the night also reflected something more personal in Lundgren's life. In recent years, he has spoken openly about his cancer diagnosis and recovery. He was first diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2015, underwent surgery to remove a tumor, and then discovered new tumors on his liver and kidneys in 2020. Doctors gave him a grim prognosis. He sought a second opinion and, by November 2024, announced he was cancer-free. He described the status as NED—No Evidence of Disease—a designation he had held for roughly three years by the time of the fundraiser.

Lundgren credited Krokdal with playing a central role in his survival and recovery. "She helped save my life with the cancer journey and turn my life around," he said in an interview. The two met at an Equinox gym in West Hollywood in 2019. Both are Scandinavian—Lundgren from Sweden, Krokdal from Norway—and they discovered they shared similar backgrounds and creative sensibilities. Krokdal described their connection as rooted in that common ground and said they complement each other's strengths and weaknesses.

Their 39-year age gap has drawn public criticism, but Lundgren has been direct in dismissing it. "Age is just a number," he said. "All that matters is that you enjoy your life, you enjoy your partner. And I think Emma is the best choice for me, and I don't care what people say." He went on to describe the choice of a life partner as one of the most important decisions a person can make.

The cancer experience itself transformed how Lundgren sees the world. He underwent survivorship therapy to adjust to what he called "a new baseline." The process was gradual—at first, he explained, he didn't fully believe the diagnosis was behind him, still operating in a state of fight-or-flight. Over time, he developed what he described as a new way of looking at life and the world around him. The fundraiser in Beverly Hills, then, was not just a night out with his wife supporting a friend's charity. It was a public appearance by a man who had faced mortality and emerged changed, now focused on enjoying the life and partnership he had chosen.