Olivier Gruner

Olivier Gruner (born 2 August 1960) is a French former naval Commando, actor, director, producer, screenwriter, martial artist, and pilot.

In 1981 Gruner left the military with the aim to train full-time in order to compete professionally as a kick boxer.

In 1984, he began fighting as a professional kick-boxer.

By 1985, his successes in the ring were allowing him to train and fight full-time.

Kickboxing titles

Gruner retired from professional kickboxing in 1987 and pursued an acting career, following the lead of bodybuilders Reg Park and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

To promote himself, Gruner plastered posters of himself around Cannes during the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, which caught the attention of a producer.

Gruner was invited to Los Angeles for screen tests.

Gruner joined Imperial Entertainment Corporation (Turner Classic Movies - TCM) and began acting in action movies.

He has appeared in martial arts magazines, such as Budo Journal, Combat, Impact, Inside Karate, Inside Kung Fu Yearbook and many more.

Born in Paris, France, he moved to the United States in 1988 after serving in the French military and competing as a professional kickboxer, during which time he won a World Championship silver medal.

In 1989 he starred in his first movie; the urban action movie Angel Town.

Although the film was not well received, Gruner was recognized his presence, with his acting compared favourably to that of Dolph Lundgren.

Gruner made his acting debut in 1990 film Angel Town.

He has appeared in over 40 films and four television series and is best known for martial arts and science fiction action films.

Gruner is frequently cast as an "action hero" since his portrayal of Alex Raine in Nemesis (1992), Lt. Sean Lambert in the Interceptor Force franchise (2000–2002), and Dirk Longstreet in The Circuit franchise (2001-2006).

In 1992, Gruner starred as "Alex Raine" in Albert Pyun’s cyberpunk 1992 science fiction thriller Nemesis.

The critics appreciated that Nemesis was filled with amazing stunts, thrilling action sequences, and innovative special effects that were pushing at the time the film industry limits of Blade Runner and Terminator 2.

Both Nemesis and Angel town have been extremely popular in video, and Nemesis is one of the movies Gruner is most proud of.

In this movie, he offers action, drama, fighting, and gunfights and had to drop down to a 4% body fat to be at his peak physically.

His credits also include Automatic (1994), Savate (1995), Mercenary (1996), Savage (1996), The White Pony (1999), Kumite (2000), Blizhniy Boy: The Ultimate Fighter (2007), Lost Warrior: Left Behind (2008), One Night (2010), and Beyond the Game (2016).

Gruner was born the second of three sons to a French family of surgeons and engineers.

At age 11, he saw a Bruce Lee movie and became captivated with martial arts and inspired by the film industry.

As he was constantly being bullied at school, this pushed him to learn martial arts in order to defend himself.

He began studying Shotokan karate, then boxing, kickboxing, and full contact kickboxing, which is essentially a mixture of Western boxing and traditional karate.

At age 18, he joined the French Navy, volunteering for their Commandos Marine unit, also nicknamed the Bérets Verts (Green Berets).

Gruner was operational with the French Commandos Marine in Djibouti and Somalia, where he was particularly involved in anti-piracy operations.

Gruner has also played roles in Automatic (1994), Savate aka The Fighter (1995), Mercenary (1996), Savage (1996), Mars (1997), T.N.T. (1997), Mercenary 2:Thick & Thin (1998), Interceptor Force (1999), Velocity Trap (1999), The White Pony (1999), Crackerjack 3 (2000), Kumite (2000), G.O.D. (2001), Extreme Honor (2001), The Circuit (2001), Power Elite (2002), Interceptor Force 2 (2002), The Circuit 2: The Final Punch (2003), Deadly Engagement (2003), SWAT: Warhead One (2004), Crooked (2005), The Circuit 3: the street Monk (2006), Blizhniy Boy: The Ultimate Fighter (2007), Lost Warrior: Left Behind (2008), Skorumpowani (2008), Brother's War (2009), One Night (2010), Tales of an Ancient Empire, also named Abelar: Tales of an ancient Empire (2010), Re-Generator (2011), Cyborg: Rise of the Slingers (2013), Sector 4: Extraction (2014), EP/Executive Protection (2015), The whole World at our Feet (2015), Assassin X also named The Chemist (2016), Beyond the Game (2016), Showdown in Manila (2016), Darkweb (2016), Iron Cross: The road to Normandy (2018), and Amour (2019).

He also played a role as Caution Templar in the film Mars (1997).

Already in 1999, Gruner appeared as "Dieter Vanderval" in the episode titled Wildlife of a television series named Martial Law.

In 2001, he appeared multiple times as "Tawrens" in 26 episodes of the television series Code Name: Eternity.

This was a project that Gruner himself had started in videos since 2003.

It shows what happens behind the scene, and the life, training, and discipline of professional athletes.

He had already done episodes on boxers, surfers, and MMA fighters, when NBC finally decided to shelve the TV series, and it was never published by them.

A video published by Gruner is available.

In 2005, NBC contracted Gruner for producing a TV series named The Pros, a way of life.

In 2010, Gruner acted as "Corsair Duguay" in Tales of an Ancient Empire, also named Abelar: Tales of an ancient Empire.

In this movie, he had the pleasure to be reunited with Albert Pyun, his mentor in Nemesis.

Gruner has been announced as "Jagger" in Escape from Paradise (2019), and as "Duguay" in Cyborg Nemesis: The dark Rift (2019), as well as in The Target (2019).

He was also contracted to play "Ivan" in the television series Seven Days published in 2019.