In Netflix's The Gray Man, Jessica Henwick and Regé-Jean Page pull the strings as the villains causing chaos for Ryan Gosling's reluctant hero, Sierra Six. Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, The Gray Man is an international action thriller about Six, an elite CIA agent, who is hunted by another operative named Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans) after he discovers evidence of high-level corruption in the agency.
Page, best known as the Duke of Hastings from Bridgerton, plays the CIA's director Denny Carmichael, who stops at nothing to make sure Six doesn't expose his dirty secrets. Henwick, who played the heroic Colleen Wing in Marvel's Iron Fist and Bugs in The Matrix Resurrections, plays Suzanne Brewer, Carmichael's subordinate who has to oversee Lloyd as the mercenary's methods grow more and more extreme.
Screen Rant interviewed Jessica Henwick and Regé-Jean Page about their villainous turn in The Gray Man, working with the Russo brothers, and the joys of not being part of the film's many insane action sequences.
Screen Rant: I really enjoyed The Gray Man. Action-packed on a global scale. Jessica, you're no stranger to big franchises, but what's it like working with the Russos on something on this level?
Jessica Henwick: Amazing. There's a reason why they're at the top of the game. I think they're both so so talented. It's a great sign when you see directors that actors repeatedly work with and I understand why now. They're really collaborative, very generous. They would ply us with sugar on set.
Regé-Jean Page: (laughs) I think that's the secret. The actors come back for the chocolate.
Jessica Henwick: That is addicted.
Regé-Jean Page: Copious amounts of chocolate in the Russos' creative process.
And how was working with the Russos for you, Regé?
Regé-Jean Page: It was fantastic. There's an incredible creative freedom working with these guys. I think the very first conversations with them were all about -- They said, "We want you to get crazy with this character. We want you to have fun. We want you to bring something unexpected and something exciting." And they made really good on their promise.
Everyone on that set had the space to be incredibly creative and their standards were so high. Also, these guys are only pushing themselves at this point. There's nothing in film that they haven't done. There's no size of action movie or sequence they haven't made. So they're kind of pushing their own records at this point. And being a part of that is a no-brainer.
You're both the villains of the piece. What drew you both to play bad guys in this one?
Jessica Henwick: It's more fun. It's more fun.
Regé-Jean Page: Oh, it's so much more fun!
Jessica Henwick: I'm just sad I didn't get a mustache.
Regé-Jean Page: I mean, we could organize that.
Jessica Henwick: I was the only villain without a mustache.
Regé-Jean Page: I mean, technically, it was more of a goatee situation [with Regé's character], you know? I'm not gonna take this mustache slander.
But you guys are also kind of the smartest ones. The movie has 9 massive set pieces, incredible action, violence, things exploding, but you guys were smart because you kind of stayed out of it.
Regé-Jean Page: We're above this. We don't get our hands dirty with the stuff the troglodytes deal with.
Jessica Henwick: We've been doing this a while. We know what's up.
And you'd just come off The Matrix, right? You had your fill of action?
Jessica Henwick: I had my fill. I had a couple of injuries, and I said to my agents I want to do a role where I'm seated or standing in every scene. I don't want to move, I don't want to run, I don't want to fight. And they said, "Here's the biggest action film Netflix has ever made."
Regé-Jean Page: Why don't you go do that?
Jessica Henwick: Go do that. And I read it and I fell in love with it.
Both your villains are very intelligent but also really kind of on the vile side. I'd say Carmichael is particularly nasty. Was that fun for you to play?
Regé-Jean Page: Super fun. The biggest difference between villains and heroes to my mind is that villains don't have moral blocks between them and their goals. And so you kind of have more open field to run into. You can really lean into trying to find a level of deviousness that an audience can relish. There's an escapism to enjoying people being bad. So you're trying to serve that up.
In the next one, would you like to get involved in the action and actually fight Ryan in The Gray Man 2?
Jessica Henwick: Do you want to do action?
Regé-Jean Page: I'd take everything. I don't mind causing the explosions in the background as the puppet master. It's the difference between being Nick Fury in the background or being Thanos in the background. Like, which way is this gonna go? Who knows?
The Gray Man Synopsis
When the CIA's top asset -- his identity known to no one -- uncovers agency secrets, he triggers a global hunt by assassins set loose by his ex-colleague.
Check out our other interview with The Gray Man directors Joe & Anthony Russo.
