\u2018Warrior\u2019 is a story of two estranged brothers, played by Tom Hardy (Venom, Mad Max: Fury Road) and Joel Edgerton (Star Wars), who enter a $5M winner-take-all MMA<\/a> tournament called \u2018Sparta\u2019.<\/p>\n American actor Frank Grillo admitted the film didn\u2019t get the best reception when it came out, even mentioning how UFC CEO Dana White<\/a> hated it like most other fight films.<\/p>\n Grillo has really come into his own since starring as Edgerton\u2019s MMA coach \u2018Frank Campagna\u2019 in Warrior, with roles as \u2018Crossbones\u2019 in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and \u2018Rick Flag Sr.\u2019 in the new DC cinematic universe. He\u2019s also in the latest season of \u2018Tulsa King\u2019 alongside Hollywood legend Sylvester Stallone.<\/p>\n Grillo says his life wouldn\u2019t have been the same if it weren\u2019t for \u2018Warrior\u2019.<\/p>\n \u2018Warrior\u2019 won several awards and saw Nick Nolte (48 Hrs, Cape Fear) nominated for an Oscar for playing \u2018Paddy Conlon\u2019, a former alcoholic and Hardy\u2019s estranged father and coach in the film.<\/p>\n Grillo said Nolte\u2019s incredible performance changed the way he looks at acting.<\/p>\n \u201cThat movie changed my life in many ways,\u201d Grillo said on My Mom\u2019s Basement with Robbie Fox.<\/p>\n \u201cI often credit Gavin O\u2019Connor (The Accountant) who\u2019s a dear friend with giving me a different career.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing around Nick Nolte changed me as an actor because I learned from Nick the depths you go to create a character,\u201d Grillo continued.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore that, I come from soaps [soap operas] and I was kinda making my way and wasn\u2019t real serious. I don\u2019t think I was.<\/p>\n \u201cWatching Nolte, who in an obscure movie that very few people saw when it came out, was nominated for an Oscar. He gives a tremendous performance in that movie, the hotel scenes\u2026.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s guys that I look at that I\u2019m like, I\u2019m embarrassed to say I do the same thing.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd still to this day, I\u2019m like, I don\u2019t do that, I mean, that guy\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d Grillo said of his former co-star Nolte.<\/p>\n Frank Grillo said Dana White hates \u2018Warrior\u2019<\/p>\n Dana White recently said he liked watching Dwayne \u2018The Rock\u2019 Johnson in the new MMA movie, \u2018The Smashing Machine\u2019<\/a>, which tells the story of UFC Hall of Famer Mark Kerr\u2019s<\/a> fighting career.<\/p>\n However, when it came to \u2018Warrior\u2019, Frank Grillo said White was simply not a fan.<\/p>\n \u201cDana White hates that movie, hates it,\u201d Grillo said on Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause he feels like it\u2019s not a good representation of fighters,\u201d Grillo added.<\/p>\n \u201cI did a show, a TV series called Kingdom.<\/p>\n \u201cHe came to the set, he loved that because we kind of made that real, we kinda made it like the UFC.<\/p>\n \u201cBut, Dana White hates Warrior,\u201d said Grillo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before he was in \u2018Tulsa King\u2019 and \u2018Superman\u2019, Frank Grillo played the role of an MMA coach. Since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,10359,641,84200,638,82,55039],"class_list":{"0":"post-162167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-dana-white","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-frank-grillo","13":"tag-mma","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-warrior"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Joel](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-123980580-scaled.jpg\")
Photo by Kevin Winter\/Getty ImagesFrank Grillo says Nick Nolte\u2019s performance in \u2018Warrior\u2019 changed him as an actor<\/p>\n