This week sees the release of Sniper: No Nation which continues where Sniper: the Last Stand ended.
SYNOPSIS: A covert operation in Costa Verde explodes into an international scandal, and the U.S. government responds by disavowing the Global Response & Intelligence Team (G.R.I.T.), branding its operatives as terrorists. Hunted by the very country he served, Ace sniper Brandon Beckett (Collins) goes AWOL only to learn that the Phoenix Rebellion, his last remaining allies, has been decimated by the Iron Legion, a mercenary force working for Costa Verde’s ruthless Prime Minister. With fellow soldiers imprisoned and scheduled for public execution, Brandon reunites with his father, legendary sniper Thomas Beckett, brother-in-arms Agent Zero, and a handful of rebels for an off-the-books rescue mission against impossible odds. As time runs out for his friends and global tensions rise, Brandon faces his most dangerous fight yet — without a flag, without backup, and without mercy.
Chad Michael Collins stopped by to chat about it with us.
Today we’re talking Sniper: No Nation, which takes off pretty much where Sniper: The Last Stand ended; Brandon and Zero are facing the consequences of their actions, without going into spoilers, can you talk about how they’ve changed since the last movie and where they are mentally?
Yeah, you’re right, there’s a continuation, a direct continuation from The Last Stand, which is kind of a new thing for us, which I think people are really going to dig, so we can dive a little bit deeper and flesh out these storylines and these characters a little bit more, so I’m excited for that. However, we do kick it up a notch, not to steal a line from the famous chef Emeril, but bam, we kicked it up a notch on this one. We got a lot of shootouts; we find Zero and Brandon pretty banged up from their last mission and also kind of stuck dealing with the consequences of a mission gone a little bit sideways. We’re considered terrorists and we’re kind of stuck in Costa Verde, so we have to figure our way out of this mess, get reinstated on good graces with the U.S. of A., with no help, no one’s coming to save us, except one guy comes to help out, well two guys actually, him and his buddy, Mr. Tom Berenger coming back as Thomas Beckett.
Yeah, which is great to see him back, so how’s their relationship this time around?
I thought it was fantastic. I really loved that his character comes back to help bail his son out of a jam, which I think is such a great paternal thing that anybody probably with a son of their own or any children of their own, of course, that’d be your first call, that’d be the first person on the scene to help you out of a mess and yeah, much like Liam Neeson, he has a particular set of skills that could probably be very useful for helping us get out of this mess.
For sure, and you’ve been working with him for years throughout the franchise, there must be almost a natural father-son dynamic these days, would you say?
Yeah, we’ve logged several films together; he was last with us in I believe Assassin’s End, which came out in 2021, something like that, so it’s been a few films, but Tom’s back in the fold, which is nice because we get to explore that father-son bond, we really got to do that a lot on Assassin’s End and so now we kind of get to carry over with that and kind of fill in the gaps of all the times we’ve hung out, all the times we’ve interacted, all the times that we’ve created that bond and gotten a little closer over the years, so it was really nice to have some really great scenes with Tom, kind of fleshing that out a little bit while also keeping eyes on the target, so to speak.
One of the scenes is a little sparring scene between you and Zero. Can you talk about putting that together? Were you just playing around or was there major choreography going into that, because it just looked kind of natural?
No, that was a great part of the script they added for this, and the downtime is to have Agent Zero and Brandon, who is recovering from a wound from his last mission, get back in tip-top shape, so to kill the time, since we’re stuck in Costa Verde anyway, not allowed to go anywhere without being hunted, we put on some boxing clothes and we do a little bit of sparring. We do a little chit-chat and whatever else about life, about the mission, about the job and everything else too, we’ll try not to take each other’s heads off, so yeah, it was a fun choreographed scene that we got to work with our great stunt crew down in Cape Town again, so we were able to put together things and I don’t think we really messed each other up too badly. I think I might have caught him once on accident, but he was pretty good, I don’t think he caught me once on accident, so I won this round I guess, yeah.
You and Ryan have worked for a few years now, so you guys must have a shorthand now in how you communicate, you’ve got that sort of brotherly thing going on?
Yeah, Agent Zero’s been with us since, that’s also since I think Assassin’s End, and so he’s been my co-lead for better or worse, much better if you ask me, and all these missions and all these fun things that we get up to together. So, working with Ryan Robbins is great; he’s a super talented guy, he’s just crazy like me, he loves to throw himself into the action.
I think his fight scenes are really fun to watch; they’re super down, dirty, and gritty. He’s the one flying through tables, he’s the one busting through doors, he’s the one kind of up close and personal with all his very, very gnarly fight scenes. Taking on bigger guys than I can handle for sure, so he’s been awesome to work with; he handles a lot of the exposition and the dialogue too, which I thank you Ryan so much.
He gets to do a lot of the heavy lifting with that stuff, since this whole thing is kind of his mission, and last hand we end up in Costa Verde to do this off-books black ops mission to help him out, and to put to rest a guy he’s never been able to capture and bring to justice, and that’s what sets up this whole turn of events leading into this movie.
Yeah, now I know you’re not in charge of this, but whoever reads or watches this, we need some G.R.I.T. merchandise, like you were wearing a t-shirt in that training scene and I thought, “I want that t-shirt”, so somebody needs to get on that.
(laughs) You’re not the first one to request that man, I’ve got a custom one-on-one, and obviously there was a patch made, as you saw in Last Stand, unfortunately it was lost and discovered by the bad guys, but a lot of people have requested G.R.I.T. merch, so I don’t know, maybe I’ll have to talk to the powers that be at Sony and see if they can’t put up a little site where people can pick up some tank tops and some patches of their own.
What would you say the challenges are of creating unique action scenes whenever you’ve been doing them for so long to make something seem fresh?
Yeah, that’s a great question for our wonderful people down in Cape Town, Stuart, Will and Bjorn and Anneli and all the people down there, absolutely incredible. It’s a team that we’re blessed to work with, they’ve worked on such amazing films that have rolled through South Africa over the years, so all the stunt stuff is really the brainchild of them. I think that there’s a general concept that goes on the page from our wonderful screenwriter Sean Wathem and I think that they are in charge for bringing it to life depending on the set and the location and how much time we have to make it complicated or not. They do a fantastic job, when we’re not filming on set, we’re usually in their gym trying to work, go through the paces with the stunt guys to make it as authentic as possible and to know it like the back of our hands and really lean into it. So, yeah I do think that they’re always looking for fun creative ways that are also grounded in realism to up the fight ante so to speak and just give you more stuff than you’ve seen before. I know on this one, I can speak to mine on this one, it’s one of my favorite parts of watching these movies because I’m not often there on set when Ryan does his massive stunt days and his big fights as well as some of the other characters. So, me seeing it on screen for the first time is really quite a treat for me because I see them working on it in the stunt gym, but I never get to see what it turns out to be like on camera. I know what I’ve done, so watching them do something completely different and off the wall crazy is an absolute joy for me.
You get to watch as a fan as well basically.
Yeah absolutely.
At this stage after several years what part of Brandon’s personality do you relate to the most?
I do think that for better or worse he’s a thinking man’s soldier. I think he’s very conscious, he’s a very deep thinker. In my own personal life that’s definitely something that I always strive towards is to be able to just be a more conscious, considerate person. I love to read stoic philosophy and all the mindset stuff and I think that Brandon is a guy that is close to my own heart because it can be a very lonely profession and you have to compartmentalize a lot of the stuff that you have to do and are asked to do and how do you survive that, and not go crazy. So, I really love that about Brandon, but I also love that he’s got a bro in Zero, a real comrade that’s kind of with him through thick and thin and has been with him for a while fighting the good fight along with the same values and the same overall mission. So, to be able to have that camaraderie is really nice, and I don’t think Brandon has been able to enjoy that in his journey up to this point. He feels like a real brother not just a comrade in arms and no doubt they’ve shared so many war stories and are there for each other and all the good stuff that kind of comes with that bond.
Always a pleasure to chat and good luck with the film and hopefully speak to you for the “potential next one”.
Potential next one, we’ll see (laughs). Yeah, so good to chat as always and we’ll chat soon. Always a pleasure, Eoin.
Thanks very much. Take care. Have a good one.
Sniper: No Nation will be released on Digital April 7th