In the most vengeful calm discussion of their lives, Mike and Jamie talk to actor/producer/musician Michael Lombardi on his new genre-bending hit The Retaliators, on Blu-ray February 21st! He gives us an inside look at the road that to his collaborations with the Geare Brothers, his approach to building the inner life of a character in conflict with himself, and what the future may hold in store for Pastor Bishop.

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I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

Groovy!

A little bit like you're like finishing delivering a baby made of celluloid.

Well said. Yeah, definitely. It was a crazy three years with this one, you know, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

We talked a little bit about this with the gears, but like what hit you specifically that made you go like, I'm going to throw myself creatively into this in a way that I never really have before?

Yeah, it's a great question because that's exactly what happened.

Honestly, from my perspective, from, you know, I've been doing this for about 20 years now, you mean acting and I don't think I've gone to this level for anything that I've done, actually.

And it certainly as a creative endeavor just took over my life.

And I think that's what it has to do if you really passionate about something and you want to make something good, you just live, breathe and eat it.

So how it started was, I'll try to make a long story pretty short, but it's an interesting one.

And I was.

I was on a set of a film and I was, I was in about two weeks, this is about three, four years ago now, but I was going to be doing a charity event.

I had an event upcoming and I was going to play a song with my band.

So many years ago when I was living in California, I'm an East Coast guy, but I'd go out there often.

I had a little a band and a little record deal back in 2009.

And my music manager used to say to me, hey, you know, Michael, you got to go right with these with with Darren.

Gear, he's an incredible he had an amazing band at the time.

He's like, you got to go write music with them.

You're going to love them.

So I would drive to Orange County from from L.A., West Hollywood, and I'd go down and write with them.

And our tastes were so aligned and our just creative sensibilities.

We just really had a lot of fun and we connected on many levels.

So cut to, as I said earlier, when I was on that movie set and I was doing a charity, five years had passed since I talked to Darren three to five years.

Maybe we connected here and there, but we hadn't talked.

In a while. And I was doing this charity event and I called him and I was like, Darren, how have you been?

How are you and your brother? What's going on?

Listen, man, I'm doing this charity event.

I'm playing one of our songs that we wrote together.

It's called Heaven and Hell.

It's not my band.

It's this, you know, this this house band and I want to drop it half a step for them.

You think it's going to sound too muddy?

What do you think? And he's like, you know, we're talking.

I'm like, what have you been up to?

And he says to me, oh, well, my brother and I have been writing screenplays the last several years.

And I was like, what?

I'm like.

Send them to me immediately.

One of them was The Retaliators, and I flipped when I read it.

I just I just love the script so much.

And I'm like, I got and I can go into why.

But I've been you know, I'll let that let that for the next part if you want to if you want to hear why.

But anyway, I was like, I got to make this thing.

I was on a plane to L.A. about four days later and having dinner with those guys talking about it.

So you say that a lot in the script, like really resonated with you.

I know that from previous interviews I've seen talking a little bit to the gear brothers, that one of the first things I said you picked up on was the ways it reminded you of The Crow and a lot of those older, more like like harder, like almost heavy metal revenge movies.

Was that something that you were excited to be able to bring to the project?

Yeah.

You know, I think 100 percent what I loved is like I'm I loved all like the the the nods and the winks to the 80s and sort of that Dante as gremlins, these small town Spielbergian beginning.

And then what I was really attracted to, too, is it had all these elements, but I love the story part.

You know, I loved the the journey that my character goes on in the relationships and and and the foundation of both of those.

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Oh, gosh, I mean, it had elements of Die Hard, of course, it had elements of I felt some Tarantino vibe in there. I felt the coolness, like you said, the crow and those soundtracks, but not only with the words going to a soundtrack, but also like action and how the third act gets completely crazy.

Oh, yeah, it's I think I kind of like called it a like a Hallmark movie that just like goes to hell. Yeah, literally goes to hell. And the sound and the tone of it, like it fits, you know, back when like in the 90s, when there was like Judgment Night and had like these great soundtracks that like accompanied the movie.

So it kind of like to me, it has like a little bit of that vibe, like something a little bit like lost in time.

Yeah, totally. And I think, you know, what's so cool is I'm sure you guys know.

That there are musicians cameos throughout the film. So not only do we have this great soundtrack, but we've got these great cameos. And what the biggest thing was to me is obviously, I was so excited to make the movie and have these musicians be such a big part of it. And having be obviously, I love the soundtrack and helping choose, you know, all those songs and where they go. So they, so they support the scene and the, you know, the audience's emotional journey and roller coaster.

But also having the musicians at hand. So it was really cool to be able to, you know, for months before we got on set, I spoke with all the musicians about their parts. We carefully cast them. We talked about the role and sort of their characters point of view and their relationships to others and what and made sure that it was just like they really understood. And then the goal was to make this a movie first. And if you weren't a fan of the band to be like, no way, that's oh my God, that's Jacoby.

Shattuck's lead singer of Papa Roach. And that's Ivan Moody from Five Finger Death Puncher. And it goes on and on. There's a lot of that. But what I was so happy about is these guys were so amazing in their roles, and they really came through. And I think it added such a wonderful element to it rather than hurt it in any way.

Oh, definitely. And you got a, you got a credit song that's about the movie. It's like that dream movie thing. Yeah, that's crazy. Right. That's like James Bond stuff.

Yes.

And I still listen to it regularly, like months and months later.

One thing I did want to talk to you about is with the with the character of John Bishop.

There's the element of how violence is used in the movie, like, has fascinated me since I first watched it.

But one thing to ask you about is how you approach the physicality of it, because John Bishop is he, yes, he is the kind of the everyman character, but he's someone who's.

The polar opposite of violence in any way, but now is approaching this area of extreme violence and thrown into a situation where he has to, or he has to do these things against his nature, even if it's something he, he felt boiling kind of within.

How do you approach that performance wise when you're when you're doing action scenes, but having to stay having to approach it as a character?

Yeah, it's a great question.

So here's the.

And thank you for asking.

Actually, it's it's definitely sort of like another level question, which is fun to talk about, because I when I got the script, obviously, and reading who he is and he's a pastor and he's a man of the cloth.

He's a man of his community.

But, you know, what I wanted to do to find the truth in it for me.

And then you hope that it comes out in their performance.

It's not like you you just you find it and then you just let it live in there.

And it was.

I made up for myself a backstory of is he choosing to be passive, you know, when he gets pushed and, you know, at the beginning.

And does he have this does he have this ability to be violent or defend himself if needed to deep down inside?

But he buried it because how do you find the truth in a guy who does a complete 180?

Right.

And it's now like Rambo basically at the end.

So I.

I thought like this whole thing, you know, obviously with the movie, you know, he's a single dad.

How did his wife die?

You know, what happened?

What did he what was he left with?

So because we don't ever find that out.

So it's not a spoiler alert, but he's a single dad in the film.

Right.

And that's what makes what happens to him so much harder than what he has to endure.

But basically, I said, you know, maybe he was in a bar fight when he was young at 16 or 17.

Or 18, you shouldn't be in bars, but, you know, that happens and something and something happened or he was in a fight and I forget the exact I did a lot of back story to it, but I didn't, you know, in my imagination, put him in a scenario and he pushed someone or he punched someone and he was pushed first because he's not a violent man.

He's not.

But that happened and he defended himself.

But the person like like got hurt, you know, badly.

And then he had to deal with all this.

So was he was was he.

In a juvenile house at times, did he spend time, you know, on the wrong side of the tracks because of this and then met his wife, whose whose father was a pastor and brought him to be a man of the cloth.

So it's buried.

You know, it was a long time ago and he turned the other cheek and he's really was.

But but I think the trick was he was never a violent person.

It was in defense that this happened.

But the path that that led him down made him be able to.

To defend himself more if he needed to, you know, so I know it's crazy, but it's sort of a long winded answer.

But I kind of wanted to layer that into me and into this guy.

So when it needs to come out again, it's there.

Yeah, I love that.

I love seeing that kind of it's kind of the opposite of what you what you often say, which is, you know, something something happens in some in a character's past and they kind of like wrap themselves in that.

But often both in life.

And I think it's.

There's an interesting character arc is wrapping yourself in the opposite.

I'm reminded of this is like such a weird pull, especially because the movie I'm about to reference is the movie I'm about to reference.

But Nicolas Cage is Ghost Rider.

There was there was an idea that he had that like this is purely like behind the scenes stuff.

But like he went, you know, the character of Johnny Blaze is always like, you know, hard drinking or, you know, because he sold a soda.

The devil.

So he's doing all of these what the stereotypical stuff you'd expect.

And Cage's thing was, how about instead of like hard drinking, I'm like eating jelly beans, listening to the carpenters.

Like I'm wrapping myself up in the exact opposite to try to hide from that and try to move on from this thing from my past.

And then that thing from your past rears up.

And I really love seeing that.

So I love that being the backstory.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

That's a beautiful choice by Nicolas Cage, who's awesome, by the way.

I think, you know what it is, too, because I think it's not the obvious choice.

Like if someone see it's always about finding like the pinch and not the ouch about and sort of getting it inside of you and then just putting your two feet on the ground in a scene and letting it roll, you know, but like doing all that homework and then letting go of it.

Because so if someone was.

You know, in a concentration camp, they don't walk around.

You could meet that person or had a terrible experience in their life.

You could meet that person, have a conversation with them and never know that.

Right.

Yeah, of course.

Unless they came up.

So we all have things inside of us and experiences, but you don't walk around saying, hey, you're right, you know, with that on your.

So so that's the beauty, I think, in finding truth and acting and truth and characters is you have it inside.

You try to do if you haven't if you don't have something to pull from, you know, a real in your life or if you don't want to because it would be too hard or too, you know, too difficult to to go there.

You sort of daydream about it and you think up something until it really affects you and you find it and you live there for a while and then you just sort of let it be inside of you.

And you might have to do that a lot leading up to it and maybe more on the day of and maybe more right before the scene.

But that's how I work anyway.

I like to just.

And then you have to trust it, you know, and just let it roll.

Going off of that, obviously, because you are like so deep into into like pretty much the psychology of the character.

What is what is your take on the final scene of the film?

Because I'm kind of fascinated by it because Bishop ends up in a very gray, unexpected gray area after everything.

You know, going off what we were talking about, you know, like this kind of like stereotypical.

What you'd expect, you expect him to either kind of like go hard and like, oh, it's it's all violence.

Like you have to do this and you have to do that or the exact opposite of it seems like he's going to a place of like, no, violence is wrong.

And he does go there, but he still defends himself.

And I'm kind of fascinated by the idea of that choice.

Yeah, because he's a different guy at the end now.

Right.

I mean, that's the thing.

Like, obviously, the film.

I love that it that it does a full circle.

Like, it's sort of like I think Darren and I were talking about like a Superman to sort of, you know, I think what's cool is.

Yeah, I think, you know, he's preaching at the beginning and, you know, he just ends up saying Merry Christmas and he doesn't.

But look what he ends up.

Look what he goes through.

So at the end, he's a different guy.

And I don't think you can ride a fine line and get into this debate about it.

But I think, you know, I.

I think that what he's choosing is to nip it in the bud now.

You know what I mean?

Like, it's all obviously at the surface.

So he's not going to be passive anymore.

It's he just went through.

He's he's a total like sort of badass.

Now, did he finally get that motorcycle?

You know, did he do the things he always sort of like dreamed of doing?

But, you know, outwardly, again, the interesting part is I don't I talked a lot with Darren, actually, and the Gear Brothers about this backstory with Bishop to try to find him to be truthful to me.

But, you know, when they wrote him, I just think they might have made him, you know, a fun loving guy, this pastor, and maybe he didn't have that back story.

But when I brought it to Darren and Jeff and talked to him a lot about it, they absolutely loved it and thought it made a lot of sense.

So, you know, you have one thing that's on the page and it's it's amazing, like their writing process.

And they really you know, they really go through this and flush it all out.

But I think it's it was fun, I think, for them and certainly fun for me to get there.

See their script, see their writing and then see the character come to life, too.

It it it might change the way that they might have perceived that final scene, you know, when they wrote it.

Oh, definitely. It's rare with any kind of movie, especially kind of these that are a little more exploitation tinge, like throwbacks or revenge movies that show a middle ground that a character that there is a middle ground, which is, you know, what life is.

You find a series of middle grounds.

It's not one extreme or the other.

And I think that that's what makes its retaliation ends up kind of like being a more complicated picture in that regard, where you do have this character of John Bishop, who goes through a crucible, more or less, you know, goes through like his own Dante's Inferno and comes out the other side.

Not he is changed.

He's not that passive character, but he's not someone who's like, OK, I'm going to use violence to ease.

He he puts both of those extremes in their place and can pick and choose whichever one he needs to use.

You know, he's not going to he's not going to continue to, you know, throw somebody into a woodchip or anything like that.

But, you know, and actually I have a question from a performance standpoint, that scene, I'm kind of I'm fascinated by your performance because you you're you play it as you're not getting revenge, even though this is what's happening.

And it's what you had originally wanted.

But this isn't about revenge anymore.

And what's like the inner monologue of Bishop during that moment?

Huh?

So you're saying at the very end, right, that one liner that I get back at him, is that the specific moment you're referring to or the whole way that that's played that big fight at the end?

Kind of like the big fight, but specifically like, yeah, like that one liner.

And when you see him die.

Yeah, I think what you know, well, first of all, it is about revenge.

But I think there he's fighting for his life through that whole fight.

I mean, look how big this guy is.

Right.

And it's like I was just really caught up in sort of the physicality of it because we did a lot of our own stunts in that.

But I think there was also a piece of me and this is being quite frank, which is interesting, is calling back the one liner from the beginning of the film.

So I wanted to make that work.

So there was a truthfulness in where.

My character was, but perhaps what you're saying and the comment you made about it, it wasn't in such a sort of revenge way.

It was I was trying to play it cool because he finally got to say the one liner that he always wanted to say, you know, he refers to die hard and how he tells, you know, his daughter.

80s action heroes are different.

It doesn't you know, you don't solve things with one liners and all that stuff.

So I think it was one of those moments in the film.

Where I tried to find as much truth as you always have to do.

You have to find the truth, first of all, but the movie doesn't take itself that seriously in moments.

And that's what I love about it.

It's a crazy roller coaster.

I think it certainly does in a lot and it sends a message.

But I think in other moments it doesn't take itself too seriously.

So I think in that it's a call back to the beginning.

It's out of it's kind of a fun, cool line.

Like I remember in the movie theater, we got a lot of hell.

Yeah, people stood up and liked that moment.

So I think it's sort of like one of those two, if that helps answer your question.

Oh, definitely.

Yeah, that's that's that's interesting.

That's yeah, so it's interesting.

It's interesting view of like I didn't I guess I never really considered like, well, yeah, I guess Bishop is getting a little bit of like, yeah, I get to say one line or like a little bit of tongue in cheek sort of like, yeah, a self-awareness of the situation.

That's actually pretty cool.

Yeah.

Like, I don't I do think what's interesting, too, is like.

In that moment, I don't even know if Bishop was aware that he felt like he wasn't like, I finally get my one liner.

But I think as the actor, I knew what was going on and how he was finally getting the one liner.

So I just wanted to make him the man at that time.

He just fought this guy.

He just did it.

He's come full circle.

So there was there.

He's not like he was fighting for his life.

But then when he did beat this guy.

Now, he's sort of on top of that.

It's like a freight train was lifted off his shoulders, you know.

But then again, as the actor, I wanted to give the nod that he finally gets to say a one line or two.

It's catharsis, but not through like he's getting revenge on this person because of what they did.

It's like personal catharsis of like everything that's been built up within him.

And it's like being released.

That's yeah, that's great.

Yes.

Good way to put it.

I'm sorry.

Go on, James.

I'm just going to say something.

I also really appreciated about that earlier scene where after the confrontation in the Christmas tree lot, you have that moment where Bishop tries to find the silver lining of that embarrassing experience and tries to pass off his decision not to act as its own type of strength, which I know for me, like put me into like a moral quandary for a good period of the movie before you got in even got into the really dark moral gray areas.

Like.

Okay, technically, that is what you should do.

But at the same time, is that?

Yeah.

Well, I think I think it's it is really, really great that in the end you do get that moment of okay, this isn't like an act of violence done out of hostility.

It's an act of violence done out of survival.

But at the same time, I am going to stand up for myself.

I am going to be the hero this once because that's what this situation actually requires.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, that's a great point.

What you said.

It's an interesting.

One because no one I think the movie gets so crazy that you could forget about the way that that moment felt at the Christmas tree lot to like, you know, his daughter looks at him in disappointment, right?

And it's like, should he write that?

I mean, the guy tossed him pretty darn well.

So it's like, should he have done something?

What is the right thing to do there?

And I think because he's always preaching the right thing as a pastor, he was he had the willpower to not, you know, try to jump back.

I don't think he was afraid.

And I tried to play it where behind my eyes when I got up after he pushed me, I look at him and I'm like holding back, you know, that's the thing.

I never wanted to sort of not that there's anything wrong with this, but I didn't think he's not like a wimp Bishop, you know, like he did worked out.

He always tried to be like, you know, Die Hard was his favorite movie.

And so I think he's containing himself there.

And quite honestly, I bet you when he got back to his house and closes like bedroom door was probably pretty bummed, you know, that he didn't do anything.

Maybe he was mad at himself.

Maybe he thought of himself as a coward.

Maybe he was proud of himself to, you know, what, what did, how did he feel behind closed doors after that, you know, with his thoughts, obviously, he's a little embarrassed.

His daughter saw it, but I think he handles it really well with his daughter when he sees her at least face-to-face about it.

And then when he talks about in his sermon, you know, that's what's interesting about him.

Kind of like rewriting the situation in his sermon is he's kind of convinced himself.

That's the way that it went.

Yeah.

Yeah, totally.

And that's why I think it's such a great moment that at the end, whenever he does decide to knock out the guy who's bullying his family, you don't get a moment of like the daughter high-fiving him or anything.

If anything, she just kind of seems a little bit embarrassed by the whole situation.

So it's not like it's not even like they're you guys are playing it up as okay.

And now from now on violence is the solution to the situation.

It's I like that.

It's played more ambiguously like, okay.

No one is made of stone.

Yeah, that's right.

That's exactly the message.

Yeah, we're not we're not like we're not saying you should do this with violence.

It's like look what the guy went through.

He's right there on the edge.

You know, he sees he learned a lesson right and it's not he's not he's not condoning violence.

He's not saying this is how it should be like you're right.

The daughter is not that psyched about it.

She's kind of like so I like the way it ends though because I also think again, it's like a fun payoff.

For the audience, you know to like look who he is now and this guy's such a jerk to him and we had that that guy was great to Skylar Stone.

He's a cook stand-up comic.

He's such a jerk in that scene.

You know, there's such amazing douchebags in this movie.

I love it.

Totally bring Brian O'Halloran out of mothballs just to be a dick.

I love it.

Yeah, totally.

That's when the cameos began.

I love that.

You need to keep your eyes.

Peeled obviously Jamie and I could talk endlessly about the retaliators.

We've already done like an hour-long episode with like the gears on this.

So I'm probably end up coming up with and some excuse to like do a commentary for it or something.

But yeah other than the blue for the retaliators.

What else do you have coming up?

Well, we'll first thank you again for enjoying the film and talking about it in your time.

It's a crazy ride.

I'm really proud of it.

I had a really fun time with this and playing that character was a lot of fun.

Of course the musical elements and I really love the horror genre so much and you know,

I'm definitely a horror head.

I grew up with it, but I'm not what I love about the collaboration with the gear brothers

is these guys are so well versed in their horror and they're such articulate intelligent

speakers and they know actors from you know, heart.

I always been very moved by the genre.

And as a young boy watched horror, you know, I remember like my mom used to watch it.

So I got turned on to it really young and have always been terrified and scared and

love it and I still love it to this day.

But to be immersed into it at this level and seeing the fan base and being parts of things

with audiences.

It's just such a wonderful genre and I'm so happy to to go this far in, you know with

this film and that brings me to the next thing.

We're hoping that.

We have an opportunity to do retaliators to we have the gear brothers and I have talked

a lot about it.

We have some they have some really great things brewing and some interesting places to go.

We are where this can go.

It's really freaking cool.

That's very exciting.

Yeah.

Yeah, it might be it's really wild too.

There's some really great things but some outlines but we're working on another film

that we it me and Darren and Jeff and we've gotten so close.

To this because it's really hard to make a movie and I spent three years, you know producing

and directing a lot of this and of course acting in it and through covid and fighting

for what you believed was in the script that others might not have and there's egos and

there's a lot of things changing locations and that you have to fight for so you find

out who your people are and who you can really trust and who will help bring you across the

finish line and Darren and I, you know, we talked a lot.

I'd be on the phone with them.

I'm on set.

I'm location somewhere.

And I'm fighting for a certain moment and I believe in this and it was a really tight

bonds.

We had and another guy who's brought into that is a guy named Randy Bricker who edited

the film and I found him because Randy's been around a very long time.

He was an apprentice on the film The Firm with Tom Cruise and then he did I am legend

but he also worked on the Halloween franchise Chucky many horror films and I thought what

a great guy who's done both story and horror and action.

So he was he watched the rough cut.

We put together a real rough Darren and I and he watched it and he said he wanted to

come on board and he helped us so much like when we had to go back out after covid and

do pickups and shots and you know, that's I directed those and me and Randy and Darren

and Jeff talked so closely so we formulate and by the way, Randy's the head editor on

the Chucky franchise series right now the Chucky series.

So he's amazing.

And anyway, me Randy and the gear brothers have been developing.

Developing another script together too.

So it's been a lot of fun being in the writers room with them and talking and going through

the process.

So we have a really great we're having a lot of fun on this new project.

Hopefully we can you know, get it into production soon.

Wow, that's a that's a hell of a team you put together.

That's exciting.

Thanks.

Yeah, I really it's about who like we just we work well together.

There's no egos.

It's a collaborative process and you know to have that many people throwing around ideas

and you know, I want to direct it and be the guy who's on set and act in it.

But then having Randy is an editor and then the gear brothers at home base, you know rewriting

scenes if we change locations and all that kind of stuff and you know there for table

reads as we're developing it and casting.

It's really nice.

It feels really good and hopefully we can do more together.

Yeah, I can't wait to see what you what you have cooking and what's coming up just congrats

for like all the all the success for this movie and then what's coming next and

and everything with better noise films and all that just congratulations.

Yeah.

Thank you so much Mike and Jamie.

Thank you guys for having me and let's talk on the next one.

Hopefully you guys will like it and want to have a song that we can't wait to love too.

Yeah, cool.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining us.

And of course that film the retaliators is out now on blu-ray, you know, depending on

where you are in the timeline.

We're recording this before the 21st, but I assume you're in.

The future either way links to pick up your own shiny copy can be found in the show notes

for Michael and Barty for Jamie or myself, you know, the drill folks get the hell out

of here and like that.

He's gone.

This is box office.

Pop guy and this has been a podcast production.

Now, please, please, please.

Put a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger and say goodnight and now on with the show.