Filmmakers On: Van Dammed, A six-part limited series podcast on the career of Jean-Claude Van Damme. Over the course of the series we will take an in depth look at Van Damme’s career (so far) from his early cameos in “Missing in Action” and “Breakin” to his transcendent run as Jean-Claude Van Johnson on Amazon. Along the way we will attempt to pin down just what it is about Van Damme that makes for such a compelling action figure.   

Part 2: Rising up.

Host J. Horton discusses with guests Aaron Mento and Kevin Caliber Jean-Claude Van Damme’s “Death Warrant”, “Double Impact”, “Universal Soldier” and “Nowhere to Run” which were all released between 1990 and 1993.

The group discusses Van Damme’s choice to rarely play a straight-up indestructible killing machine; his best characters are flesh in blood men. Well-muscled and extremely flexible men, but men all the same. Even in “Universal Soldier”, where he was literally playing a killing machine, he injected the character with real pathos. This is what separates him from counterparts like Steven Seagal. 

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