Where You've Seen The Cast Of The Gray Man Before
Industry innovators Netflix are finally starting to fall behind in the streaming wars, suffering sizable layoffs as they face stiff competition from media mainstays like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery and tech giants Apple and Amazon (per Variety). For the past few years, Netflix's strategy has been to spend big, snagging major stars both in front of and behind the camera and offering them the same scale of budgets as major studios. The latest result of this gamble is "The Gray Man," a spy action-thriller starring multiple A-list actors and directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, whose "Avengers: Endgame" grossed nearly $2.8 billion worldwide. Netflix handed the Russos a $200 million budget for "The Gray Man," all without the expectation of a box office return.
For their money, Netflix has secured a star-studded event picture for the small screen. The Russos have assembled an ensemble of name Hollywood and international talent in the hopes of keeping worldwide audiences glued to their TVs and smartphones — or, at least, subscribed to the big red N for another month.
"The Gray Man" appears to mine similar territory as the Russos' first hit, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," another globe-trotting intrigue-infused action film. However, the Russos' own track record as film directors outside of the tightly-controlled Marvel Studios machine has been less than inspiring. Can the brothers muster a genuine hit on their own steam? And, in a cinematic landscape more obsessed with recognizable characters and brands than with movie stars, can a non-franchise picture like "The Gray Man" even make a mark? It'll be up to this all-star cast to find out.
Ryan Gosling as Six
Canadian Ryan Gosling is a two-time Academy Award-nominated actor, achieving critical acclaim for his roles in the 2006 drama "Half Nelson," the 2011 thriller "Drive," and the 2016 musical "La La Land." Gosling's career began in children's television, starting in 1995 when he starred opposite the late, great Gilbert Gottfried on an episode of the Nickelodeon horror series "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" He'd go on to appear on the Canadian daytime teen dramedy "Breaker High" in 1997 and 1998, and as the titular character on "Young Hercules," the short-lived prequel to "Hercules: The Legendary Journey." He also has a small but memorable role in the 2000 sports classic "Remember the Titans" as perky wide receiver Alan Bosley.
Gosling's breakout came in 2004, when he co-starred opposite Rachel McAdams in the hit tearjerker romance "The Notebook." He's maintained a varied repertoire ever since, alternating between serious dramas, quirky comedies, and pitch-dark thrillers. Notable turns include his starring role in the off-beat comedy "Lars and the Real Girl," his contribution to the ensemble of Oscar darling "The Big Short," and his hilarious performance in the criminally underrated Shane Black film "The Nice Guys." Gosling is also no stranger to genre pictures, having portrayed the replicant K in "Blade Runner 2049."
Following his turn as the mysterious super-spy Six in "The Gray Man," Gosling is due to co-star with Margot Robbie in Greta Gerwig's cheeky film adaptation of "Barbie."
Chris Evans as Lloyd Hansen
Chris Evans is best known for starring as Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, in seven Marvel Studios films, four of which were directed by Anthony and Joe Russo. His superhero career dates back to before the days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, however, as he also starred as the Human Torch in both 2005's "Fantastic Four" and its 2007 sequel, "Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer." Other action roles include Jensen in 2010's "The Losers" and skater/movie star Lucas Lee in Edgar Wright's spectacular action-comedy "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" that same year. In 2013, he led the cast of Bong Joon Ho's sci-fi action-thriller "Snowpiercer."
Evans' resume doesn't consist exclusively of high-concept genre flicks. His first break came when he earned a regular role on the Fox high school drama "Opposite Sex" with future "Heroes" and "This is Us" star Milo Ventimiglia and future "Smallville" star and convicted felon Allison Mack. The series lasted a mere eight episodes, but the following year, the 20-year-old would appear in "Not Another Teen Movie" as Jake Wyler, the smug jock who's a parody of the similarly-named character from the contemporaneous hit "She's All That." His heartthrob looks also won him the role of the "Harvard Hottie" in 2007's "The Nanny Diaries."
While his commitment to Marvel movies kept him occupied for most of the 2010s, the conclusion of the Infinity Saga has allowed Evans to take on a wider variety of roles, such as his scene-stealing turn as the trash-talking Ransom Drysdale in Rian Johnson's whodunnit "Knives Out" and his starring role on the Apple TV+ drama "Defending Jacob." Evans portrays the eccentric assassin Lloyd Hansen in "The Gray Man." No word yet on whether or not he's keeping the mustache.
Ana de Armas as Dani Miranda
Ana de Armas is riding a career high, with starring roles in three major motion pictures releasing in 2022. She started the year appearing opposite Ben Affleck in the erotic thriller "Deep Water," and following the release of "The Gray Man," de Armas will star as Norma Jeane aka Marilyn Monroe in "Blonde," the highly anticipated adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' fictionalized biography. This follows her role as green CIA Agent Paloma in 2021's "No Time to Die," a brief but memorable appearance that had fans of the franchise clamoring for a spin-off (per Showbiz CheatSheet). That currently seems unlikely, but only because de Armas is expected to lead a different action franchise spin-off, the "John Wick" expansion "Ballerina."
De Armas' acting career began in her native Cuba, but she found greater success in Spain, starring on the hit teen television drama "El Internado" from 2007 to 2010. When her career overseas began to lose momentum, she made the ambitious move to Hollywood in 2013, before she was even proficient in English (via C Magazine). A mere two years later, she was starring opposite Keanu Reeves in the Eli Roth thriller "Knock Knock," and two years after that, she enjoyed a prominent role as the holographic AI "Joi" in "Blade Runner 2049" with her future "Gray Man" co-star Ryan Gosling. In 2019, de Armas featured as Marta Cabrera in "Knives Out," standing out amongst an all-star cast that included Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Christopher Plummer.
Following her action role in "The Gray Man" and her Oscar play in "Blonde," Ana de Armas will reunite with Chris Evans once again for the Apple-released romantic adventure "Ghosted," on which she will also serve as executive producer (via Entertainment Weekly).
Jessica Henwick as Suzanne Brewer
Jessica Yu-Li Henwick is an English actress, writer, and director whose reputation as an action star has been steadily growing in recent years. At 16, Henwick became the first actress of East Asian descent to lead a British TV series as the star of "Spirit Warriors" (per Hemispheres). While she's played a variety of roles in the world of British theater and television, her Hollywood highlights tend to involve action. From 2015 to 2017, Henwick appeared as the whip-wielding warrior Nymeria Sand on "Game of Thrones." Beginning in 2017, she co-starred as Colleen Wing in the Marvel Netflix series "Iron Fist," which led to further appearances on "Luke Cage" and "The Defenders." Henwick's performance is one of the only agreed-upon highlights of "Iron Fist," and impressed Marvel enough that she was offered a new role in the MCU as Xialing in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," which she declined in the hopes of reprising Colleen Wing in the future (per The Hollywood Reporter).
On the big screen, Henwick has featured in the sci-fi thriller "Underwater," the post-apocalyptic adventure "Love and Monsters," and the Sofia Coppola-directed comedy "On The Rocks." In 2021, Henwick starred alongside Keanu Reaves and Carrie-Anne Moss as Bugs in "The Matrix Resurrections." She also plays a small role as X-Wing pilot Jess Pava in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." If Henwick's voice is familiar, you may be recognizing her from her work in "Blood of Zeus" or "Blade Runner: Black Lotus."
After "The Gray Man," Henwick's next big role will be in Rian Johnson's "Knives Out" follow-up, "Glass Onion," which will also debut on Netflix in 2022.
Regé-Jean Page as Carmichael
English actor Regé-Jean Page is one of the breakout stars of "Bridgerton," the soapy regency romance series that debuted in 2020. He portrayed Simon Basset, the Duke of Hastings, on the show's first season, which earned him an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. His first credits on British television were as a regular on the kids' series "Gimme 6" in 2001. As an adult, Page enjoyed a short stints on the comedy "Fresh Meat" in 2013 and on the long-running drama "Waterloo Road" in 2015, before making his Hollywood debut in the 2016 History Channel remake of "Roots." In 2018, he was cast as a lead on the ABC legal drama "For the People." Though canceled after two seasons, this role led directly to his fateful casting in "Bridgerton," also produced by the powerhouse studio Shondaland (per Deadline).
Page has since caught the eye of Paramount, who have signed him to leading roles in two major motion pictures. First, he'll star in "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" with Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, and Justice Smith, which is due in 2023 (via The Hollywood Reporter). After that, he'll be front and center as the new Simon Templar in a rebooted feature film version of "The Saint," a role previously portrayed by Roger Moore and Val Kilmer (per THR). Though these are no doubt action roles, the trailers for "The Gray Man" indicate that Page's character, Carmichael, may reside on the more intellectual side of the film's spycraft.
Wagner Moura as Laszlo Sosa
Wagner Moura is a Brazilian actor and director best known internationally for his portrayal of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar on the first two seasons of the Netflix series "Narcos." He's also one of the stars of the Apple TV+ high-concept thriller series "Shining Girls" alongside Elizabeth Moss. His earliest feature film appearance was in the 2000 romantic comedy "Woman on Top," an independent American production starring Penélope Cruz that happened to shoot in Salvador, Brazil. In the mid-2000s, Moura became a telenovela star, appearing in 156 episodes of "A Lua Me Disse" and 167 episodes of "Paraíso Tropical." He also played the more serious dramatic role of young Brazilian President Juscelino Kubitschek in the 2006 miniseries "JK."
2007 saw Moura pivot to heavy drama with the release of "Tropa de Elite" ("Elite Squad"), a violent police drama which won the Golden Bear at that year's Berlin Film Festival (per Reuters). Its 2010 sequel, "Elite Squad: The Enemy Within," is one of the highest-grossing Brazilian films of all time (via Screen Daily).
Moura has recently made more inroads in Hollywood, making his studio debut in 2013's "Elysium" with Matt Damon, winning acclaim for his role on "Narcos," and now returning to American features with "The Gray Man." 2022 also sees him lend his voice to the Big Bad Wolf in the animated "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish," and he'll star with "Kirsten Dunst" in Alex Garland's 2023 action film "Civil War."
Julia Butters
Julia Butters is a young American actor who's been making film and television appearances since she was five years old. After a handful of TV guest starring turns and a small role in the Michael Bay film "13 Hours," Butters won a recurring role on the Amazon series "Transparent," portraying the main character Sarah Pfefferman's daughter Ella Novak during the show's second and third seasons. (Butters is one of three actors to play Ella across the series.) From 2016 through 2020, Butters played the youngest daughter Anna-Kat on the ABC family sitcom "American Housewife."
Her most memorable role, however, is undoubtedly her portrayal of the brilliant child actor Trudi Fraser in the 2019 Quentin Tarantino film "Once Upon a Time ... In Hollywood." Butters' performance garnered a lot of attention, including a Vanity Fair article in which her scene partner Leonardo DiCaprio compared her to Meryl Streep. "The Gray Man" will be her first subsequent appearance in a feature film, though she did show up for a sketch on the second season of "I Think You Should Leave," as one of the kids in the Tammy Craps doll commercial. She'll next appear in Steven Spielberg's latest film, "The Fabelmans," as a character loosely based on Spielberg's sister (per Movieweb). Butters' role in "The Gray Man" is currently unknown.
Dhanush as Avik San
Dhanush is a prolific Indian actor, director, and singer who is making his Hollywood debut in "The Gray Man." Dhanush has been active in Tollywood (Tamil-language) cinema since he was a teenager, debuting in the coming-of-age drama "Thulluvadho Ilamai" ("Exhuberance of Youth") in 2002. He has won India's National Film Award for Best Actor twice, once in 2010 for "Aadukalam" ("Playground") and again for the 2019 film "Asuran." Dhanush's action films are consistent box office smashes. He also starred in the hit Bollywood drama "Raanjhanaa" in 2013.
For the past decade, Dhanush's bread and butter has been action films, starring in the comedic "Maari" and "Velaiilla Pattadhari" series and harder-edged "Kodi," "Vada Chennai," and "Asuran." This led to his joining the cast of "The Gray Man" in a fighting role. The Russo Brothers shared a clip of his fight against Ryan Gosling and Ana de Armas' characters on Twitter ahead of the film's release, and as impressive as he might look, his fans call his fighting a mere two opponents — as opposed to his customary 20 — "a cakewalk" (per Hindustan Times).
Alfre Woodard
Alfre Woodard is a highly decorated actor who has been a constant presence on American screens since 1978. Throughout her long career, Woodard has accumulated an Academy Award nomination (for "Cross Creek" in 1983) and a whopping 17 Emmy nominations, including four wins (for "Hill Street Blues" in 1984, "L.A. Law" in 1987, "Miss Evers' Boys" in 1997, and "The Practice" in 2003). Woodard was a member of the main cast of the acclaimed medical drama "St. Elsewhere" from 1985 to 1987, acting against an up-and-coming Denzel Washington. Woodard tends to drop in on hit ongoing series for single seasons or story arcs, telling a complete story and leaving a lasting impression before moving onto the next project. Series that have enjoyed her visits over the decades include "Desperate Housewives," "True Blood," "A Series of Unfortunate Events," "Luke Cage," and "Empire." She has, however, remained as a regular on series such as "State of Affairs" and "See."
Her film career is also varied, from indie darlings like 1992's "Passion Fish" to studio dramas like "Love & Basketball" and "12 Years a Slave" to genre flicks like "Star Trek: First Contact" and "Annabelle." She's also lent her memorable voice to films such as "The Lion King," "Dinosaur," and "The Wild Thornberrys Movie," as well as a number of documentaries.
This will be Alfre Woodard's second Russo Brothers movie, having made a one-scene appearance in "Captain America: Civil War" as Marion Sharpe, the mother of a recent college graduate killed in the Avengers' disastrous battle in Sokovia during "Age of Ultron." Woodard's role in "The Gray Man" is currently unknown.
Billy Bob Thornton
Actor, singer, and director Billy Bob Thornton has enjoyed a long career on film and television, primarily in independent dramas and dark comedies. His resume goes back to the mid-1980s, but his breakout role came in 1996 with "Sling Blade," a film that he also wrote and directed, winning him an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Soon, Thornton was everywhere, appearing in dramas, comedies, and blockbusters from "Monster's Ball" to "Love Actually" to "Armageddon." In 2003, Thornton had another hit on his hands with the gross-out comedy "Bad Santa," which spawned a sequel and a trend of imitators.
Thornton's heyday overlapped with his high-profile marriage to fellow actor Angelina Jolie, whose public eccentricities at the time were fodder for tabloids (via Insider). Since their divorce in 2003, Thornton's life has been decidedly less public.
In the 2010s, he followed many of the character actors of his generation to television, starring in the first season of the FX series "Fargo" and heading up the Amazon Original drama "Goliath." Following the conclusion of the latter series, Thornton is developing a new show with "Yellowstone" creator Taylor Sheridan, "Land Man," which is expected in 2023 (per TV Insider). Thornton made a guest appearance on one of Sheridan's other series, "1883," in 2021. Thornton's role in "The Gray Man" is currently unknown.