Gilles Marini Unveils the Action-Packed World of 'Murder Company'

[00:00:00] Gilles, thank you for joining me today on Pop Culture Unplugged for Murder Company. Thank you for having me. I appreciate you guys. First of all, I want to say hello to a fellow, you're part Greek, right? I saw your name. I said, yep.

[00:00:25] It's always good to talk to a fellow Greek. Yeah, it's my mom's side. It's funny. Galicis, that was her last name. Can't hide anything. You must be partially like, because I noticed you follow soccer.

[00:00:42] I'm a huge soccer fan. Now you got, you know, Euro Cup and you're probably all over the place. Who to root for? I know you're probably rooting for France.

[00:00:49] That's how you know where that person comes from. In Europe, they say, hey, who are you supporting as a national team? And that would be the feeling in their soul. They are from France or Italy or Greece.

[00:01:01] And I always say, of course, France. I was born and raised there, so it's normal. And I did my soccer years there. So I guess this. But of course, when Greece play, I want Greece to win.

[00:01:09] Of course, when Italy play, if they don't play against France, I want them to win. Yeah. Amazing. So you have a friend, Murder Company. I watched it late last night before I had to go to work this morning.

[00:01:21] I love these type of movies. It brings you like you got to pay attention. You know the history with everything. Let's start with, you know, your role in Murder Company. How were you approached for this film?

[00:01:33] Well, Richard Switzer, I worked on the film with him a year prior and was fun and a great relationship was created there. And then he called me last minute last year in, I would say, end of July and said, wow, we're going to shoot this film.

[00:01:47] Here's the script. I think you're amazing for this. And they offer me the role when I saw the script. I'm like, man, I'm waiting for 17 years for this. Not because I'm waiting for just playing this.

[00:01:56] And, you know, actors, we start waiting for a movie to end up having an Oscar for. You thrive for something like that. Right. Personally, for me, it was like I'm waiting for a long time to a movie like that because it would give homage to my family.

[00:02:10] And that is more important than anything else. So my grandma was really involved in the Second World War. She did a lot of amazing things for others, for the Jewish community, for the community around her.

[00:02:23] And also she was one of the 12 percent who rised against the regime back then because, you know, the Germans came in and France, 88 percent of them said, oh, welcome. Here's the Jews. So it was interesting to to have someone in this family so adamant.

[00:02:39] And she was very hurt by it. So for me, I just kind of played her. No, I did play her as the character Jean Dacquen because she had all the scars, all the trauma, all the PTSD, all the shell shock from it.

[00:02:56] So for me, it was really important to play that role. Finally, my mother saw one little one little scene. She couldn't stop crying. It's very important for us. How do you prepare to play such a role?

[00:03:08] Like, did you go back to try to watch other films or like pick up a book or two to try to read more about it? Well, to be super honest, I'm baited in since I'm four years old.

[00:03:17] Since I can remember speaking my grandma is with me telling me the war stories because she doesn't know she's doing that. To that point, I'm talking about someone with a tiny knife shaking because Parkinson and just looking,

[00:03:33] dulling the unknown and telling you a horror story and you're four, you're like, what kind of world are we going to live in? My mother didn't want her to tell us any story. So that was that much.

[00:03:49] It was super. Incredibly powerful for me to be able to sit in Bulgaria, recreating France and play it a real story about a guy that really did exist. And it was kind of simple, man. You know, you look into like, what did you lose?

[00:04:08] Where did he live? He lived in the First World War. He was a sniper then, became kind of a known sniper. Like if you want someone dead, you get him right in the resistance. And then Second World War is part of this resistance.

[00:04:22] And then the entire family is murdered by this guy. Then he comes back and he has an opportunity to get rid of them. So he doesn't care about dying or living or he only cares about.

[00:04:37] Killing this man, not the other guy next to him, this man, because he took his family out, this man is dead inside and be aware of people who don't care no more.

[00:04:47] And and he has talent. You see that you see he's there for them without saying a thing. He's very stoic and he's very, he's very dark in a way because of the trauma. And I just picked absolutely everything for my grandma.

[00:05:05] You mentioned a sniper and everything. Any type of training before you jumped on the road? Second luck to me. Second luck to me. My father was a sniper in the army. He was a sniper, chasseur alpin, sniping. So that means he was not sniping by coming down.

[00:05:22] They were sniping while going down mountain. On skis. So this special forces in the Alps and the old white. So when they lay it on the snow, you don't know they're here.

[00:05:39] So he taught me when I was a kid, a little bit of a with a 22 that I still have. He's not there no more. My father passed like 28 years ago, but it he told me how to snipe a little bit.

[00:05:51] But when I arrived in Bulgaria, of course, I want to be so perfect with it. And we had the special forces of Bulgaria. Those guys fought more than anyone else. They like they knew all of it. It was scary.

[00:06:04] The stories from them, too. And so they just told us how to be. You know, this guy called him Turtle. That was his nickname. Maybe 60. Bold. You can see in his eyes. Oh, God. He taught me all of the movements.

[00:06:20] I wish it was more scenes where you see me crawling while using wrestling move. I mean, it's crazy. I really, really enjoy that part. Let me tell you if I can just do that again and do it tomorrow.

[00:06:32] What do you think sets this film apart from like any other like World War Two movies that we have out there? Well, it's tough to say apart because when you think about World War Two movie, think about saving Perry Bryan. You know, of course, it's extraordinary.

[00:06:46] He's done well done with a hundred million dollars and the best actor you can pay for it. You know, so it's different when it comes down to the production insanity. But let me put it this way. Shane, with very few time, very few hours,

[00:07:01] very few moments in his life and not a Marvel budget, did something kind of really amazing. We had like, oh, my God, we got 30 minutes for the scene. That's crazy. But he did it. So, you know, you there like, is he going to turn out this or that?

[00:07:20] And then you see the project and you see how we did it and how it turns out. I'm like really happy and proud for sure. For sure. You know, I talked to Shane a week ago, two ago.

[00:07:32] He was telling me like there's always place for improvement with everywhere, especially when you get the possibility money wise and whatnot. But man, we did something special here with what we had.

[00:07:43] And that's it. I commend a lot of respect to this man because he has this ability of saying the only thing that I want the entire time of shooting is osmosis and happiness and positivity.

[00:07:53] So he's looking for anything that is a bit maybe negative to just try to help out, to become positive. So the the atmosphere in the movie where you sweat when you like with spires under the ground

[00:08:07] and there's no like someone's going to clean it up before you, you know, it was real. It was really real jumping from rock. You blow both your knees, you blow both your knees, you know,

[00:08:15] and there's no stunt there. I loved it, man. It was very special for a dude to do it. You mentioned Shane collaborating with them also. Did you did he come up to you like during filming?

[00:08:26] Say, hey, how do you think you should do this scene or like vice versa? Like you bounce ideas off each other? Yeah. First of all is either our master. So I personally I know actors who said no. And it's that I personally am your puppet.

[00:08:40] And this is you with the strings. You're the director, you're the boss, you're the vision of this. And now when the director says, hmm. I don't know what what can we do for this?

[00:08:51] Then then you come in. I can clearly tell you a scene where I came in. Imagine 15 years of experience in Brazilian jujitsu and the black belt in the sport. I absolutely love mixed martial arts. I cornered fighters since 2007.

[00:09:07] Shaq Congo is my brother. So when it comes down to fighting and then combat, I love this in five years, though, I own every sport. And then our jujitsu in 1944 did not did not exist. It's 51. He came out so in Brazil.

[00:09:25] So my hand is behind my back and there's a German who's going to murder me because now it's time I didn't give them the names. Right. You saw that. That moment was how do I take out a man with hands behind my back in 44 is impossible.

[00:09:41] You're going to die. But within a bit of knowledge, you can pull a triangle choke after breaking a kneecap. And that's what I did. Kneecap, triangle choke, passed out. The man who did the stunt with me was gurgling, passing out.

[00:09:55] It was passing out. So it was like this is really effective. So what we try to do that, that's one of the example where Shane says, yeah, let's do that. But besides that, Shane knew what he wanted. Shane knew what he wanted.

[00:10:12] He was finding so many elements because there is a son who doesn't care about who you are. It goes away. It goes away. There is a lot of it is there's not many chefs in the kitchen. There's only chef in the kitchen. So it goes fast.

[00:10:28] But but with the work with Shane and Ian and of course, Richard Switzer, they made that happen. I can't wait for them to do more. I believe because Richard has a production company, Maverick,

[00:10:43] I believe if this is turning out the way it is, I believe he's going to be doing a lot more work. And especially in those regions, Bulgaria and all that is, of course, is cheaper to shoot. But people are extremely excited. Let's let's put that in the mind.

[00:10:59] If you shoot something in L.A., you're going to have 50 people passing by in three minutes cursing at you because the traffic and stuff or whatever it is over there. You see camera people are doing this. They're like, what's going on?

[00:11:11] And they say they live the experience. It's fresh. I really enjoyed it big time. Filming this this movie also, what was like your favorite moment that it hit you? You're like, yes, I'm doing this. This is what I've always wanted to do.

[00:11:27] There's a scene. There's a scene where my my character explained the reasons why he's doing what he's doing and because the soldiers around him are really not thrilled about doing something that they already been shot at.

[00:11:40] They're not going to come home. They're going to die. What's going on? Why are we doing this for this guy? Why? And they started to get a little bit amped on me. And this man doesn't speak. This man just kills because he's got to go.

[00:11:53] And then he breaks down and tells them, and you can tell. How heartbroken and dead inside he is. And that was a scene for me that really knots everything together and say, oh, that's the reason that to me was really powerful.

[00:12:13] Of course, the action scenes Shane had like, dude, we have 30 minutes. You got to give 40. We have so much to do and the sun is going away. And go. So we're running around with camera behind me. I'm jumping and shooting and there's a guy called Juan in Bulgaria.

[00:12:32] So the guy's falling at the same time exactly when I shoot. We shot that so renegade. That's a three day shot with great light. Everybody's face is there. We don't have time, we have 30 minutes. Man, I saw it. I'm like, man, it looks like it's 30 minutes.

[00:12:50] It's like you need all of it. And that's what the vision of Shane was like special. I know he's really good with image. And we have Martin Chikov, who was an incredible DP.

[00:13:03] He looks at you like this and he does his thing and it's like you in an incredible light. The region was stunning. I mean, I know you saw it. So yeah, that was really an important thing for me to shoot because it's a true story.

[00:13:20] Amazing. And I know like I said, you talked about that fight scene. Also, I can't wait for the viewers to see that. So we're talking about July 5th for the release date of Murder Company. Yes. Yeah. July 5th. I can't wait. And Apple TV, I believe on demand.

[00:13:34] Amazing. I want to thank you for giving me a few minutes today on press day. And hopefully I'll see you again in the future with other projects. I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have good luck with the rest of your day for press.

[00:13:44] Thank you, man. I appreciate it. Talk to you soon. Thank you.