Frank Grillo

Frank Anthony Grillo, born June 8, 1965, is an American actor and martial artist. He is widely known for playing Brock Rumlow / Crossbones in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sergeant Leo Barnes in The Purge franchise, and Rick Flag Sr. in the DC Universe. His notable film appearances also include Warrior, The Grey, End of Watch, Zero Dark Thirty, Wolf Warrior 2, Wheelman, and Boss Level.

Grillo was born in New York City to a working-class Italian-American family of Calabrian origin and was raised in the Bronx and Rockland County, New York. He holds Italian citizenship. Grillo began wrestling at age eight, took up boxing at eighteen, and started studying Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Rickson Gracie in 1991, eventually earning a brown belt. He graduated from New York University with a business degree and spent one year working on Wall Street before being asked to appear in a Miller Genuine Draft beer commercial.

Grillo began his acting career in commercials for companies such as American Express and Sure deodorant. He made his feature film debut in 1992's The Mambo Kings and made early television appearances on Silk Stalkings and Poltergeist: The Legacy. From 1996 to 1999, he played businessman Hart Jessup on the daytime soap opera Guiding Light. Over the next decade, he appeared in films including Minority Report, April's Shower, iMurders, and Pride and Glory, as well as television series such as Battery Park, For the People, The Shield, Prison Break, Blind Justice, and The Kill Point.

Grillo's feature work expanded in 2010 with the horror film Mother's Day, followed by a supporting role as MMA trainer Frank Campana in Warrior in 2011. He played Diaz in the survival thriller The Grey and Sarge in End of Watch in 2012, and appeared in Collision and Homefront in 2013. In 2014, Grillo was cast as Hydra agent Brock Rumlow in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, later reprising the role in Captain America: Civil War and voicing the character in the animated series What If...? That same year, he starred as Sergeant Leo Barnes in The Purge: Anarchy, reprising the role in 2016's The Purge: Election Year.

In the late 2010s and 2020s, Grillo appeared in films such as Demonic, Big Sky, The Crash, Beyond Skyline, Reprisal, and Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard. He produced and starred in the film Boss Level, and took on roles in This Is the Night, Copshop, Ida Red, The Yacht, and A Day to Die. He also portrayed Ferruccio Lamborghini in the 2022 biographical drama Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend. In 2019, he signed with Creative Artists Agency for representation.

On television, Grillo starred as MMA coach Alvey Kulina in the drama series Kingdom from 2014 to 2017. He joined Billions as artist Nico Tanner and was cast as Kansas City mob boss Bill Bevilaqua in Tulsa King. In 2024, he voiced Rick Flag Sr. in the animated series Creature Commandos, reprising the role in live-action for the second season of Peacemaker and the DC Universe film Superman.

Grillo married his first wife, Kathy, in 1991; they had one son, born in 1997, and divorced in 1998. He married actress Wendy Moniz on October 28, 2000, after meeting her on the set of Guiding Light. The couple had two sons, born in 2004 and 2008, and divorced in 2020.