Jean-Claude Van Damme first burst onto the Hollywood scene in 1982 as an extra in Joel Silberg’s Breakin’, following up that unitard-clad appearance with dozens of martial arts and action films including the Kickboxer series, which has been revived. Since then, the actor’s resumé has swelled to include 62 film and TV credits, but all that hard work has meant answering numerous inane questions from reporters. Van Damme’s endured the endless junkets because there will always be stiff competition out there for action stars, though the repetitiveness of the queries occasionally results in a wooden response. But the actor found himself standing at attention during a recent interview via satellite with an Australian morning show.
It’s not clear what project Van Damme was promoting on Sunrise—it might have been Jean-Claude Van Johnson, his forthcoming meta-comedy on Amazon. But he barely made it through the broad strokes before blowing up. There was friction from the start, with Van Damme blistering at questions about his relationship with Kylie Minogue, with whom he starred in Street Fighter.
“Sorry, guys, I can not do this anymore. The press, they have been asking me the same questions for the last 25 years. ‘Kylie [Minogue], how’s your training, how’s your this, how’s your that?’ They are boring. Okay, next question. You have something interesting to ask me?”
Finally, he stormed off with a “What the fuck is going on with Australia?” We’re not sure what the Sunrise host could have done to make the interview more stimulating for Van Damme, but maybe they’ll learn something from this boner.