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This [the hideously rainy weather] is my gift to you.
[Adopts surprisingly good cockney accent] Fackin hell mate.
[Laughs]
Bloody ell!
Yeah, we all speak like that!
Congratulations on the film.
It sounds as though it was quite a tough shoot.
It was a quick shoot we shot it in 26 days.
All that action was me, so it was a little physically demanding, yeah.
What was the toughest aspect of it?
To not have him too emotional or sympathetic, or sentimental.
So by the end, where there is some emotion, you feel hes earned it.
I think James did a great job of pacing it that way.
Hes a difficult to read character, which is good.
You dont know his name.
There are little things we held back from the audience.
Because we usedEscape From New Yorkas a bit of a template, with Snake Plissken.
I think he pulled it off.
It reminded me ofEscape From New Yorkand alsoThe Terminator,with that grungy, street-level action.
He could do it again.
you’ve got the option to make it look too easy.
Did the satirical aspects of the script appeal to you?
I grew up with no money.
So Ive always felt like a person who would be purged against, you know?
I know its a genre film, but inside it theres a social message not just for our country.
And then I saw the first one, and I liked it, but I didnt love it.
It was contained and you could see it had been made on a budget.
You didnt see what was going on around it.
The success of the first movie was a big surprise.
We were asked the question a couple of times, Would you make another one?
And, you know what?
With James DeMonaco, [I would].
I certainly have ideas you could take this purge to so many different places.
There are so many stories that you could tell based on this event.
Youve got Michael K Williams character as well, which is kind of like a whole other film.
A whole other thing.
Wouldnt that be a cool story?
So maybe theres something in that, yeah.
How did making this compare to something likeCaptain America 2, which had a huge budget?
The elevator scene that was a two week scene, just to shoot that three minute sequence.
So almost as long as this took to shoot!
So when you think about that, you do a page of material a day.
This is what you have.
But its not easy making movies like this.
You get spoiled onCaptain America,where your trailers two blocks long and its got three bedrooms.
OnThe Purge,there is no trailer.
But I loved doing both of them.
Do you know if youll get to return to that character inCap 2?
Well, I do know that Ive signed on for multiple films, so it looks that way.
Thats as much as Im allowed to say!
One of your films I really liked wasWarrior.
Oh yeah, that was one of my favourite movies.
And the TV series Im doing now is loosely based on that movie.
If you took the Nick Nolte character, and his two sons, thats what the shows about.
Its calledKingdom, and its on Direct TV.
Really visceral and dark.
I play what would be the Nick Nolte character, and its about this world we live in.
The MMA world, but at a lower level.
Do you remember the movieDonnie Brasco?
Oh, great film.
You know how it explored the Mafia at that, uh…
Street level.
Thats what this is.
It doesnt glorify the UFC.
So Im really excited about it.
I dont think it was marketed properly.
But 10 people come up to me and say, Dude, that movie changed my life.
It helped me get through this.
Or, Are you a coach?
I got a call once from the Arizona State Universitys wrestling coach, asking me if Id train them.
I was like, Im not really a coach!
[Laughs] But that was a great compliment.
I was like, Thank you!
Yeah, that was before anyone really knew who Tom was.
In fact, Gavin [OConnor] had to fight to get Tom on that movie.
We got to train for three months before we shot a frame of film.
Tom and I are dear friends, I was just with him for his movieLocke.
So we created great relationships.
Im really proud of that film.
Just to be a part of it was a great thing for me.
Changed my career, too.
Another film wasHomefront, which you made with Jason Statham.
That was with my friend Gary Fleder, who asked me to be in the movie.
Hes actually directing two episodes of my show right now, so hes a dear friend.
I had fun doing [Homefront].
It was a small thing but again, I got to do my own fighting.
And Jasons a great guy.
He can drink a hell of a lot.
So we had some fun times together.
For a Statham film, that had some heart and some good characters in there.
I got to terrorise Winona Ryder, which is always fun!
[Laughs]
So what was Statham like to work with?
Hes a guy who understands his appeal to an audience.
He understands his limitations.
So hes very professional.
He really knows what hes doing, and I respect that.
He doesnt believe hes Daniel Day Lewis, you know what I mean?
And hes great at the action stuff, and hes really charming.
I cant say enough good stuff about him.
And like I said, he can drink more vodka than any man I know!
Thats a talent in itself.
I have to ask, do you have a favourite Jason Statham film?
My favourite Statham film is the first one I saw him do.
I was like, Who is that guy?
I wanna hang out with him.
Because hes handsome but not Hollywood pretty boy.
I could tell right off the bat that hes an athlete, a tough guy.
Hes got that thing.
I dont know what it is, that thing in his eye.
Im a huge Statham fan.
Ive seen all his movies.
So looking back on your career so far, what role or performance are you most pleased with?
It was such a great, existential relationship with the character.
To date, thats my favourite film.
Again, Carnahan and I became friends.
Were going to doDeath Wishtogether.Death Wishhas an amazing script.
Thats kind of tied up with Fox.
Hes got a film calledWhite Jazz,which is based on the book.
So him and I are going to do something I think at the end of next year together.
Its a shame, the wayThe Greywas marketed, in the UK at least.
Which is a shame, because it was actually a very poetic, existential movie, as you said.
It was, and the template for that movie do you rememberDeliverance?
Yes, of course.
And so those journeys that you get to see, for me as a film watcher, were gorgeous.
It was kind of like a Godard film, you know?
And if theres wolves and youre running, its about Liam Neeson running from wolves.
And thats what they did.
They kind of took the easy route, and I think they made a mistake.
But hindsight is 20-20.
Is it true youre doing a remake ofThe Raid?
We were going to do it in Malaysia in September, with Screen Gems Sony has it.
We pushed it to January because of how much time we need and so forth.
Its me, and maybe Anthony Mackie, so we might be reteaming fromCaptain America.
So will you be the lead in this?
Frank Grillo, thank you very much.
The Purge: Anarchyis out in UK cinemas on the 25th July.
