When you visit Frank Grillo at his house in the Hollywood Hills, you can see how much his position as a centerpiece of James Gunn’s new DCU means to him. He speaks passionately about Gunn, and about his character, Rick Flag, but also about the impact the new gig has had on his relationship with his three sons.
After an hour-long chat about Flag’s jump from Superman to Peacemaker, Grillo is walking me out when he pauses at his youngest boy’s bedroom, which is completely covered in DC and Marvel paraphernalia—Moon Knight and Doctor Doom posters, hundreds of comics.
“We lost his comic collection during the fires; we had another house in the Palisades that burnt down,” Grillo said. “But his collection now is 10 times the size, because DC and Marvel sent a bunch of stuff, and every Wednesday I take him to the comic book store. We’re bonding over this. I just took the three of them to Comic-Con for Peacemaker and their eyes were lighting up that their father is part of this world that they love. I can’t imagine how that would be. My father was a bricklayer, and he did good brick work, but it doesn’t get me excited.”
Rick Flag is also driven by his son, in a much darker way. Flag Jr., a dedicated soldier played by Joel Kinnaman in James Gunn’s 2021 film The Suicide Squad, was brutally murdered by John Cena’s Peacemaker near the end of that film. In the years since, Peacemaker has become the hero of his own HBO Max series (created by Gunn) and Gunn was appointed co-CEO of DC Studios, alongside producer Peter Safran. One of Gunn’s first calls was to Grillo; he asked the Captain America: The Winter Soldier alum to follow him to DC and take on the crucial role of Rick Flag Sr., a former military general who’s climbing the government ranks while seeking revenge against Peacemaker.
Gunn’s DCU is less than a year old, but Grillo is already one of its fixtures, appearing as Flag in the animated series Creature Commandos, the hit film Superman, and now Peacemaker season two. Grillo calls Flag “the connective tissue” of this budding universe, and compares his role to that of Nick Fury in the MCU. As it happens, Grillo—who’s already starred alongside Samuel L. Jackson in multiple Marvel films—will reunite with Jackson onscreen in the upcoming third season of Paramount+’s Tulsa King. In short, Grillo’s having the kind of moment he’s been working toward throughout a career spent playing tough guys in the Purge franchise, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Warrior, Kingdom, and dozens more.
Here, Grillo discusses why he really wanted to dye his hair white for Flag and why he really didn’t want to dance for Peacemaker, as well as the secret DC project that includes big plans for him.
GQ: You just came back from the Peacemaker premiere. Superman launched last month, and then you have Tulsa King returning very shortly. Are you just riding the wave at this point?
Frank Grillo: We were at the premiere, and I was like, “This is cool. Like I’m really entangled in this world.” And then this is why I love Gunn: we were at the afterparty, and he leaned in, “You know what we got coming next, right?” And I’m like, “No.” He goes, “We got something big—and you’re all over it.” I don’t know what it is, but he knows, whatever he needs me for, in whatever capacity, I’m in. My agents know, when the call comes, just say yes and we’ll figure the rest out later. I feel very lucky that somehow I got my caboose attached to his train. I don’t know how it happened, I don’t know why it happened, so, at this point in my life, I’m just so happy it happened.
Is there something to being in at the beginning of this new DC? You’re helping lay the foundation for what this world will become.
I’m there in the embryonic stage of DC, and so I take ownership of it. It’s much different than coming into Marvel and just doing a character in a couple of movies. I feel like I work for James and Peter, and it’s my duty to make sure that my end of the deal is held up to the highest standard. It’s like when you are drafted into the war, and those people you were drafted with, whoever lives through it, they’re the tightest ones. And the ones who come in later on, you weren’t there, you didn’t live through it with us. And so I think the group that Gunn’s got now is that group, and we all love him and will do anything for him.
How did Gunn earn such loyalty, and how did you become his guy?
We’d cross paths, and he loved Kingdom, and he said, “We gotta work together someday,” the famous last words in Hollywood. And then he goes, “I got something going on, and when I lock it down, I’m gonna call you.” I go, “Great,” not knowing it was taking over DC. And then I was one of the first calls, and he said, “This is Creature Commandos, it’s animated, but we want whoever voices these characters to also be the live-action [actors].” I went, “Send me the scripts, but I’m already saying yes.”
