Frank Grillo and Joe Carnahan have forged a strong partnership, collaborating in varying capacities on movies like The Grey, Into the Ashes, Point Blank, and Boss Level. The duo also have a remake (albeit, due to rights issues, now in the unofficial sense) of the modern action classic The Raid: Redemption in the works. Grillo and Carnahan are now back at it again with the new prison-bound action thriller Copshop.
Grillo portrays con artist Tony Murretto, who allows himself to be arrested and incarcerated by rookie cop Valerie Young (Alexis Louder), with the aim of escaping pursuing hitman Bob Viddick (Gerard Butler). Unfortunately, his plan backfires when Viddick finds his way into the same prison. From that point forward, their vendetta gets a lot more explosive.
Screen Rant spoke to Frank Grillo on the making of Copshop, the more small-scale setting the film utilizes, and the challenges encountered in filming the movie in the relatively early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Screen Rant: How did you become involved with Copshop?
Frank Grillo: Yeah, I mean, the producers had a script called Police Station, and Joe and I had been talking to them about some things, and they were actually going to distribute Boss Level during the pandemic. So we met them that way and they gave us the script. It wasn't a really good script, to be honest with you, and Joe read it and he offered to re-write it. He put his Carnahan magic into it, and it came out entirely different and better. And so, me and Joe, we thought, "It's COVID, no one's working. If we have an opportunity to go make a movie in Atlanta and hire a bunch of people, why not?" Gerry Butler was on board, and we went and made the movie, and we did it fast. It's out already, it's pretty quick.
Well, of course, adapting to the pandemic has been a real challenge once stuff was allowed to resume. Were there any big challenges you guys encountered when you got started on it?
Frank Grillo: I mean, everything was a challenge. Everything. I mean, just setting up the movie was so expensive, because you couldn't get insurance, we had to hire a lot of doctors to be on set and create protocols. No one had protocols at that time. And hats off to the producers, who kind of let us run with it. It was difficult every day. And fortunately, one person got COVID on set, and it was a producer who wasn't really affecting anybody else, he wasn't really around anybody else. But we did it, we pulled it off, and we employed a couple of hundred people in the process.
Did you have to deal with any shutdowns for anybody testing positive? It sounds like just the one?
Frank Grillo: One day. One day because of this producer, we shut down, because you have to check other people, obviously, and it was good. We had a bunch of false positives, because of the way you test, but it was an adventure. I never want to do that again, but we pulled it off, and Carnahan was amazing. We did our other movie Boss Level together, we had a 42-day schedule, he shot that in 27 days. There [are] not people who could pull that of, so he really was the captain of the ship.
Were you dealing with any time restrictions or anything like that when you got started on Copshop?
Frank Grillo: Butler had to be out at a certain time, and we had a 34 or 35-day shoot. Then one day goes down, you lose a day. So, you know, every day, we're a day behind. But again, Joe's done it all, so he doesn't lose his cool, and Gerry's a pro, and we pulled it off. Alexis Louder, nobody knows who she was, but she's going to be a big star.
Aside from the pandemic, what were some of the memorable moments or experiences from the making of Copshop?
Frank Grillo: You know, that's a great question. Because we were so kind of confined in this bubble, we just became really close to each other. We really did have this little utopia, so to speak, and we had to do things just together. We couldn't kind of go out in the world. And Joe and I lived in the same house together, so it was like going to summer camp.
And of course, you're making it with Gerard Butler, and you've got a prison setting for it. What was it like working with him and the different kind of setting for an action movie for Copshop?
Frank Grillo: Yeah, I mean, both of us were confined obviously through most of the movie in a jail cell, which I think makes it really interesting, and Gerry and I have been friends. So, you know, it's fun just kind of trying different things, because you do have to make it interesting. You have to make it look interesting, and our production designer - you would say, "How are we going to shoot a movie in a police station? This is going to be ugly? What are we going to do?"But I thought the way it's shot, Juanmi [Azpiroz], our DP, I think did a beautiful job creating a style.
And, you know, again, for a movie shot in 35 days, during the pandemic, you know, it's a fun movie. Sit down, and have fun for 90 minutes. Don't peek into it too much. Just enjoy it - or don't!
Dealing with the prison setting, aside from COVID and the one positive test, were there any injuries or mishaps that happened in the making of the film?
Frank Grillo: Not really, there really wasn't. You know, it's so confined, and again, we're separated from each other for most of the shoot. It really was a COVID-friendly movie. I think the only injuries were from Butler beating up his stuntmen a couple of times!
With the setting, was that always intended, or was that kind of tailored to sort of adapt it to the COVID situation?
Frank Grillo: No, no. The movie was what it was, and it just kind of coincided with the fact there was COVID. It's a very contained story, which made it very perfect. If it wasn't that, I don't think we would've been able to shoot during that time.
How early into the pandemic were you able to start on it?
Frank Grillo: We were about six months into the pandemic. We were in it!
With the story of the film, and it's a very kind of different setting for this kind of movie, what drew you to this movie, aside from working with [Joe] Carnahan and Gerard Butler?
Frank Grillo: You know, whenever Joe and I have an opportunity to pull off a film, we take that opportunity. I think what drew me to it was it wasn't a typical character for me, I had to kind of create something. You know, the whole thing with the man-bun and the suits and everything, I needed to kind of create this guy you're not really going to like. You're supposed to like her [Valerie Young], and hopefully, at the end, he redeems himself. But you're not supposed to like Teddy Murretto, he's out for himself, and who likes a guy with a man-bun and flashy suit and snakeskin boots!
For me, it was that, it was like, "Let's go have some, let's not take ourselves too seriously, let's go have some fun. Let Joe write the snappy dialogue that he writes, and let's go make this kind of Quentin Tarantino-esque movie." And I think that's what it kind of is, it falls into that world.
Was Tarantino a specific influence on it, or was there any kind of influence you drew on in Copshop?
Frank Grillo: I know Joe respects Quentin Tarantino a lot, and I think Joe has a very similar style. I haven't seen the cut that's being presented, it's different than Joe's cut, so I can't speak for exactly how stylistically it looks or how I look or whatever. But it was intended with the music, with the way it was lit, and the way we speak to each other, the vernacular, it was meant to sound like a seventies movie.
Going back to what you said about your character in the film, not meant to be a likable guy, but how else would you say he's different from characters you've done in The Purge and the MCU or Beyond Skyline?
Frank Grillo: I think those characters, and I try to find this in the stuff that I'm offered, I try to find something honorable in all of them. Right? So, whether it's Rumlow or Leo Barnes or whatever character I play, or I even did a movie called Donnybrook based on a novel, and this is a horrible human being, but I try to find something honorable. And there's nothing honorable about Teddy Murretto. I don't judge, and I know people like this, every time they can take advantage and there's an opportunity, whether it be right or wrong, they'll go for it. It's a shortcut, and that's what I thought this guy would be, and that's why he's not likable. I don't like him. When I first saw the first cut, I'm like, "Oh, I don't like that guy. I want to punch him in the face!" That's what I wanted.
This is a little bit off of Copshop, but we had Skylines come out back in December. You weren't in that, but it had a little bit of , "Oh, he's [Mark Corley] dead - oh, maybe not!" Liam O'Donnell has talked a little bit about where he would take it in Skyline 4, so is there any possibility that for Skyline 4, we might see you return for that?
Frank Grillo: Yeah, you know, I spoke to Liam, and he's got some ideas. It's so funny because at the same time [James] DeMonaco called me about Purge 6, Liam O'Donnell called me about Skyline. And I thought, for what Beyond Skyline was, I thought was one of those B-movies that I would watch forever. I dug it, I dug what Liam did, and the special effects were great. I said, "Dude, if you have a good story, I'm in." I love him, so yeah, I think there's Purge 6 in my future, and maybe Skyline 4.
Copshop is now in theaters.
