Michael Bisping retired from fighting competitively in 2019 and has since established himself as an action star, now fighting on the big screen. He can be seen in hit films such as the Liam Neeson starring NAKED GUN, DEN OF THIEVES and its sequel PANTERA opposite Gerard Butler, TRIPLE THREAT alongside Michael Jai White, and RED SONJA (2025). He can next be seen in ATLAS KING, in which he plays the titular character.
In the movie Atlas King (Bisping) returns home to find the city’s fight game is now ruled by ruthless crime boss Clay Emerson, whose iron grip threatens to wipe out the last remnants of his former empire and seize total control of the city. Savage clashes in the ring, a high-stakes heist and an explosive showdown push Atlas to the edge, forcing him to confront Clay in a final battle of empires.
Michael stopped by to chat with us about Atlas King.
Hey Michael, how are you doing?
I’m very well, how are you?
I’m doing good, thank you very much for taking the time to chat with me today.
My pleasure.
So, today we are talking about your new movie Atlas King; what was it about the script that made you want to sign on?
Well, I mean, I started off doing like small parts in action movies from 2009 and fell in love with it and obviously you always want the bigger roles and you always want to challenge yourself and I was very lucky over the years to have some good parts in some decent films and then Atlas King was brought to me, I think, a couple of years ago now and they came to me with the lead. So, obviously, that’s a big challenge and something that, I’ll be honest, I never really thought I would get to be the lead in a film, so I’m very grateful for the entire crew. Then I read the script and I was like, this is a real script, it’s not some corny, cheesy MMA action film; it’s a heist movie, it’s a redemption story and it’s, yeah, it’s a very, very good, interesting script, so yeah, I’m proud of it. We all worked extremely hard, shot the whole thing in downtown LA and I think it looks pretty good.
How would you describe the character of Atlas and how do you connect with him emotionally as a character?
Yeah, well, to be honest, we have a lot of parallels in our own lives because Atlas King is a former street fighter that kind of gets involved with the LA mob and gets himself into trouble. He gets shot and almost killed and he goes back to live in England for 15 years and then his mentor and best friend dies. So, he comes back to LA for the funeral and when he goes back, he realizes that his friend’s son that he’s burying, his son is kind of caught up with the same people that I was in trouble with; so, I can’t leave town and allow his son and his whole family to follow the same kind of fate that I was headed towards. I’ve got to come back and take care of business and to be honest, I was a fighter and to be honest, I was involved with some unsavory characters early in my life, in my early MMA career. A lot of the managers and stuff weren’t exactly the most professional, so I certainly had a lot of personal circumstances that I could lean on, so this character to me seemed like a natural fit and yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of similarities to be honest.
Was there anything that maybe wasn’t in the script initially that you said, “I feel this character would do this”, that you wanted to add to it?
Oh yeah, absolutely, there were a lot of times. Nika, the director, was very, very open to me making changes to the script. He wanted me to feel natural; if I had any dialogue changes, obviously we’d have a conversation about it and stuff like that, but yeah, he wanted me to feel natural doing this and there was a few things that we changed along the way, but nothing major overall, just slight wordings and phrases and stuff like that. I mean, the whole team was just incredible to work with and I think people are going to see when they watch it they’ll see that this is a real film, it’s not some corny action MMA thing; it’s a real gritty crime thriller.
Now, like you said, you’ve been in some movies before, you’ve been in Triple Threat, which is one of my favourite movies from Jesse Johnson; can you talk about the transition from real-life fighting to on-screen fighting as part of the challenges faced when you first started and how it is now?
Yeah, yeah, it’s funny because even still to this day, whenever I show up on set, the fight choreographer always says, “okay, Michael, so obviously in this, we’re not trying to hit the person” and I’m like, “for crying out loud, this isn’t my first rodeo, I know what I’m doing”. So, there’s always that hilarious and comical interaction because they do say that to me, but other than that, I mean, I’ve done martial arts my whole life, so in terms of choreography and things like that, that’s very, very easy to learn.
In this one as well, hopefully there’ll be quite a lot of the MMA, UFC fan-base tuning in to watch it, so I wanted to make sure that the fight scenes were very realistic. I’m not saying that they had some crazy things anyway, but I was like, well, let’s change this, maybe if we tweak things a little bit to my style to make it a bit more violent and a bit more real and they were very open to doing that. The choreography side of things is always something I’ve been a natural at. I mean, as I say, lifelong martial artist started at eight years old, so that stuff comes easy.
In general, what is it in a script that has to jump off the page for you to be interested in the project?
I mean, it’s going to be a good story, it’s something original, it’s going to be something that I’m going to enjoy and feel challenged by doing. I’m also not at the point (far from it) where I’m turning roles down. I’m very aware of where I am in the world; this is a new world for me, even though I’ve done it for a while. I’ve done what, close to 20 projects now, but still, I don’t class myself as some experienced thespian, far from it. I’m still very much still a beginner and I’m learning all the time, like working alongside Cuba Gooding Jr, I learned so much from that guy. Just every take that he did was completely different from the take that he would do before it; the dialogue would be completely different, the sentiment would be the same of what he was saying, but the words that he would use were just wildly different. So yeah, I’m still learning all the time and hopefully some more scripts will come my way; I think I’ve got something that I’m featuring in later this year; we’re shooting in England, but it’s not signed, sealed and delivered yet.
We touched on it a minute ago, but how did you find working with director Nika?
Oh, he was great, he was awesome and we’ve actually become really good friends; he’s so passionate about not just this film, but just about film in general. I mean the man’s a savant; he just absolutely loves it and he’s always writing and coming up with something new, and he’s always got a new idea, so he was the perfect person to kind of partner with as well with Punch It Films. We formed our own production company and we’re trying to use Atlas King as like a proof of concept of what we can do, so yeah, Nika was incredible to work with and also very open; he wasn’t set in his ways too much. If you had an idea and it was a good idea, it was like, “yeah, sure, let’s try it, let’s see what it looks like”, so yeah, he was great to work with.
Whenever you’re working on a film like this and there’s a lot of long hours on set, how do you manage downtime or is there in fact any downtime working on a film like this?
Not really (laughs), I mean the acting side of things used to be, it’s a lot of sitting in the trailer and doing nothing, until you’re the lead, then it’s a very, very different world. I kind of yearned for some of that time sitting in a trailer and being left alone. For the most part, it was up at the crack of dawn; because we shot in downtown LA and I live in Orange County, so I drove home every day, just so I could spend a little bit of family time at home in the mornings or in the evening, have a glass of wine with my wife or whatever, so yeah, get out of bed at the crack of dawn, drive up to LA, work 12-13 hour days, drive back and do it all again, sometimes seven days a week. So yeah, definitely a lot more challenging, but much more stimulating, because I always used to say, like with the acting stuff, they pay you to sit around and wait, because when you’re actually on the camera and you’re performing and you’re doing what you’re there to do, that’s so much fun. You get to play these characters and become somebody else, so yeah, being the lead and just go, go, go mentally the whole time. I absolutely loved it, I really did.
How would you like the film to resonate with audiences?
How would I like it to resonate? Wow, that’s a good question; I hope they get to see what I’m capable of, what this crew is capable of, the four of us. We started our own production company and I think what we’ve done is quite remarkable and I hope that people can see that the cast and the crew was so dedicated and everyone cared about the film; there was so much love and attention went into this and there was so much effort from everyone involved and I think that comes across on screen. Obviously, we had a decent little budget, but this isn’t some Hollywood blockbuster, far from it, but I think with everything that we did, the hard work, the favours that we pulled in; on screen it looks pretty good, it looks like a pretty expensive movie, so I hope people enjoy it; I think they will, I think they’re going to be quite surprised when they watch this. I think with me attached as the lead, they think it’s going to be some cheesy MMA film, as I said, but it’s far, far from that and yeah, give it a chance, August 21st, see what you think.
Thank you so much. Also, anytime you need any support for any projects, give me a shout, it’s very much my wheelhouse, so happy to support you.
Appreciate it, brother, thank you very much.