Meet Frank Grillo, Hollywood’s new action ambassador
It’s taken two decades for Hollywood to zero in on Bronxborn actor-producer Frank Grillo, whose latest films include the hard-boiled Netflix thriller “Wheelman” and China’s blockbuster foreign-language Oscar contender “Wolf Warrior 2.” Action’s newest star doesn’t seem to mind the wait.
“I find in L.A. that you ask people how they’re doing and the immediate answer is, ‘Oh, I’m very busy,’ as if busy is the goal,” a very busy Grillo, 52, told The Times over TexMex in Austin, Texas, ahead of trips to Brazil and Israel, and a return to the States to film bare-knuckle brawl pic “Donnybrook.” “It’s like I’ve been starving for 20 years and all of a sudden I’m in the best restaurant in the world, but you’ve still got to control what you eat. Because I’m a working guy, it’s been tough saying no.”
Saying no has, however, freed Grillo to take control of his own path. At 52, the New York native who got his start toiling in TV and soaps is finally leading action vehicles of his own with a new production shingle, a new starring film, a globetrotting docuseries about fight cultures around the world, and more on the horizon.
Dark-haired and chisel-jawed, with the leonine build of a fighter and a New York City charisma that can veer from approachable to menacing in his screen roles, he carries the appreciation of a hustler who hasn’t forgotten the dues he’s paid. At a time when work and real life seem to be syncing up, the father of three sons who moved to Los Angeles two years ago is grateful to be on the verge of his moment.
“It’s funny, because I’m 117 years old!” quipped Grillo, musing over what he describes as a surplus of good fortune. “I’m a blue-collar guy, self-educated. Something happens where the thing that you are and the thing that you do somehow align, and it’s real, and it touches somebody who thinks, ‘I can connect to that guy.’ I don’t look like a Hollywood Guy. I’m a regular guy.”
Actual regular guys might disagree. On a fall afternoon at a sidewalk cafe in Texas, he orders shrimp fajitas but apologetically skips the tortillas thanks to a semi-strict regimen for an upcoming role, perhaps the most actorly thing about him. “Doesn’t that sound stupid?” he laughs with a self-deprecating smile.
A wrestler in his youth, Grillo started boxing at age 18 and trained in Brazilian jiujitsu under Rickson Gracie. Between recent movie shoots and press tours, he’s been traveling the world filming a Netflix docuseries, tentatively titled “Fight World,” in which he visits with fighters from disparate cultures from Thailand to Myanmar to Mexico.
“I am so curious about fighting, in a holistic sense: What makes a man or a woman (fight)?” offered Grillo, who trains locally everywhere he goes. “It’s hard to be a fighter; most fighters don’t make money. What’s more painful than getting punched in the face is the preparation, the training. It’s almost sadistic. These are some of the most beautiful people, and I’m fascinated by what drives them.”
Mining the emotional depths beneath the traditionally masculine terrain of combat, genre and action stories has allowed Grillo to carve out his own niche in an industry overflowing with actors waiting for their moment.
Coming off of last year’s action-packed “Captain America: Civil War” and “The Purge: Election Year,” he concluded in August a three-season starring run on the MMA drama series “Kingdom,” in which he played the patriarchal owner of a Venice, Calif., MMA gym.
He can currently be seen leading the Netflix original film “Wheelman” as a getaway driver stalking the streets of Boston with hot cargo after a heist gone awry.
More star turns are on the horizon, including “Beyond Skyline,” a sci-fi action sequel in which he shares the screen with Indonesian actor and stunt choreographer Iko Uwais of “The Raid.” Both roles add family dynamics to the drama, pitting Grillo as everyman heroes driven toward danger by deeper responsibilities.
“I don’t think I’m going to be doing the ‘math teacher who wants to become a woman in Idaho’ stories,” he smiled. “I think this is my trajectory, these action movies.”
He began his career with a two-year stint on “Guiding Light,” where he met his wife, actress Wendy Moniz. But the heightened melodrama of soap acting wasn’t for him.
It was his work as a dirty NYPD cop in Gavin O’Connor’s 2008’s “Pride and Glory” that first sparked his friendship with filmmaker Joe Carnahan, who would later cast him as an oil worker facing down his mortality and toxic masculinity opposite Liam Neeson in 2012’s “The Grey.”
A memorable performance in O’Connor’s 2011 MMA film “Warrior” also made Hollywood take notice: Those roles landed Grillo on the radar of filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo, who brought him into the Marvel Cinematic Universe playing the villainous Crossbones in their “Captain America” movies.
“We were looking for an (actor) who had a charm that made the audience like him and feel like he’d be a potentially be an asset to Captain America, but who could also make a real turn, where you shock the audience: It turns out he’s a villain,” said Joe Russo, from the set of “Avengers: Infinity War.”
“It’s hard to find actors with that level of charm who feel relatable and real,” he added. “Frank is an incredibly unique actor with a very gifted naturalism; he can convey a skewed morality that makes him relatable, even on the smallest level.”