Brothers Joe and Anthony Russo have directed four of Marvel Studios’ most epic movies.

They started out directing TV sitcoms like Arrested Development and Community and occasional feature films like Welcome to Collinwood and You, Me and Dupree. However, it was Captain America: Winter Soldier that made them famous.

Then came Captain America: Civil War, and the third and fourth Avengers movies (Infinity Wars and Endgame), bringing the Infinity saga to a rousing conclusion that had fans and critics alike applauding.

Movie lovers know that a project directed by the Russos means action, compelling characters, and a story that speaks to our times, even if it involves a large group of superheroes.

Now with The Gray Man, their new movie on Netflix, they come at a turning point for this platform with a story in which CIA agent Court Gentry (Ryan Gosling), also known as Sierra Six, comes out of a federal penitentiary after being recruited by Donald Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton).

Things have changed and Sierra Six is ​​the target, pursued by Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), a former CIA partner. Agent Dani Miranda (Ana de Armas) acts as a backup for Sierra Six.

 

 

We are familiar with your work on comic book adaptations, such as the Captain America and Avengers stories. Now, you have decided to adapt a novel. How does that experience compare?

Joe Russo: They are different mediums. When you adapt, you think about how it’s going to play out on screen in a two-hour story. Novels can be much longer; their narrative time can be much longer than in a superhero movie.

So, you have to make certain decisions. We also like to take inspiration from existing material because we want to give it our own flavor, our own ideas, and our own theme.

We love this book. We felt a strong connection when we first read it years ago while making Captain America: Winter Soldier. I actually did the first adaptation between takes, while we were directing that movie, as a potential story to do after we were done with it.

But then we were asked to do Civil War, and later the last two Avengers movies. So, we stopped this project for a few years.

 

Is that how Chris Evans got involved?

Anthony Russo: More or less. Working with Chris for so many years, through those four movies on that specific character of Captain America was exciting.

We started to develop the idea of ​​having Chris, with his ability as an actor, which clearly goes way beyond all the wonderful things that he brought to that Marvel character. We wanted to do something with him that would take him away from that character as much as possible.

And I don’t know if he can be farther from Captain America than from the character he plays in The Gray Man.

 

Evans’ character in The Gray Man is the antithesis of Steve Rogers.

Joe Russo: He created this character. Chris is lucky enough to be at a point in his career where he’s only interested in taking risks. So he really embraced the role.

This movie is a parable between good and evil. The two main characters are assassins, but one moves away from humanity and the other approaches it.

Chris’ character stems from many ideas and philosophies that are developing in today’s world. Chris understood the task and worked very hard on this notion that he was an agent of chaos.

Anthony Russo: Also, Chris is a very sophisticated filmmaker, not just an actor. He understands storytelling on every level.

And he knew that the whole movie was designed around one idea, that the character that Ryan Gosling plays and the character that he plays are polar opposites. The more we can push those two characters, the farther away they are from each other, the more we can get from those two characters in terms of their qualities and their energy – the more interesting the movie would be.

 

The Gray Man also reunited you with Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFeely, with whom you had already worked on Marvel movies together. How has that relationship evolved?

Joe Russo: It’s been amazing. We’ve worked together for a decade. We’ve codified a process of working together where the four of us can get into a room and collaborate together.

But with Anthony, I’ve been collaborating with him for 30 years. And they (Marcus and McFeely) have worked with each other for 20 years so it’s easy to come together and create together.

We built our company AGBO, and we have a very disciplined approach, having a script to focus the storytelling. It’s something we used to do with the Daniels when they worked on Everything Everywhere All at the Same Time.

We worked on the script and then we all read it out loud together and talked about the narrative: “What if this happened here? What if there was more emotion in this scene?”

That’s our story development process and we’ve found that it can be applied to commercial films, art house films, drama, comedy, to whatever you want to do.

We all enjoy it because it is disciplined and efficient. That allows us to switch from one genre to another.

 

 

In the film, you used a lot of drone technology and new lighting schemes not seen before.

Anthony Russo: Yeah, we did a lot. Joe and I have always been fueled by technology. We like to find new toys because it allows us to create experiences that we have not seen before.

Certainly, in this movie, we’ve used a number of gadgets like the speed drone, which was a novelty. And I think it creates a really impressive and exciting effect on the film.

A lot of the visual effects work we do is groundbreaking, and it’s groundbreaking in ways you can’t tell. We’re working on various technologies that can capture the facial performances of actors and copy them onto the bodies of stuntmen or digital doubles in a way that people haven’t seen before.

It’s all based on the technology that we innovated for the character of Thanos (Josh Brolin) in terms of capturing and mapping his performance as a person into a fictional character.

So yes, technology has always been very important to us. Hopefully, while you’re watching the movie, it doesn’t show.

 

Can you talk about your work with Ana de Armas?

Joe Russo: Ana is fantastic. You have to train a lot to make a movie like this. It’s very hard on your body, very difficult physically.

Suddenly you’re shooting a scene of punching and kicking at full speed and force an inch from someone’s face. If you miss or are off by an inch, you’re going to hurt someone or you’re going to be hurt.

It’s hard to make action movies, and she’s not afraid. She is a very physical person. She trained very hard. And she got into the role in an incredible way. That shows on the screen.

 

Anthony Russo: The best actors have this quality, bravery. They are willing to do things they haven’t done before, to challenge themselves in ways they haven’t experienced before.

Doing this has been an incredible opportunity for Ana. And she has done it with great enthusiasm.

 

Translated by Mario Amaya