The Reinvention of Jean-Claude Van Damme

‘Jean-Claude Van Johnson’ finds the action star playing a more self-aware version of himself — here’s how JCVD did it, in his own words

By Kory Grow

Jean-Claude Van Damme discusses how he learned not to take himself so seriously in the new Amazon series, ‘Jean-Claude Van Johnson.’ Graham Walzer/Redux

Jean-Claude Van Damme — the kickboxing King of the Splits, the street-fighting inspiration for the game Mortal Kombat, the fabled flexing “Muscles From Brussels” — can get seriously silly.

“I like to make voices with my kids,” he says nonchalantly. “You see a cartoon and you do one.” Then Van Damme asks, “Can you make a voice for me? Make a voice for me.” After a few increasingly goofy back-and-forths, the star of Bloodsport comes back with a non-sequitur that sounds like a cross between Kermit the Frog and Ray Romano: “I’m sorry about your shoelace.” He lets out a big laugh.

Long one of Hollywood’s hardest men, Van Damme, now 57, shows a somewhat softer side in the new TV series, Jean-Claude Van Johnson, which premieres in full on Amazon on December 15th. The martial artist plays a fictionalized version of himself — a down-on-his-luck Van Damme (his preferred third-person way of…