Olivier Gruner

Olivier Gruner was born into a French family with a background in surgery and engineering, as the second of three sons. His interest in martial arts was sparked at the age of 11 after watching a Bruce Lee movie, which inspired him to pursue both martial arts and a potential career in the film industry. Being constantly bullied at school pushed him to learn martial arts 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. In 1978, at age 18, he joined the French Navy, volunteering for their Commandos Marine unit, also nicknamed the Bérets Verts (Green Berets). He was operational in Djibouti and Somalia, where he was particularly involved in anti-piracy operations. 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. In 1989, he starred in his first movie: the urban action movie Angel Town. Although the film was not well received, Gruner's screen presence was notable and his acting was compared favourably to Dolph Lundgren. In 1992, Gruner starred as "Alex Raine" in Albert Pyun’s cyberpunk 1992 science fiction thriller Nemesis. The critics appreciated the amazing movie stunts, thrilling action sequences, and innovative special effects pushing the film industry limits like Blade Runner and Terminator 2. Both Nemesis and Angel Town were popular in video distribution, and Nemesis is one of the movies Gruner is most proud of. In this movie, he offers action, drama, fighting, and gunfights often showing off his peak physical fitness at only 4% body fat. In 2010, Gruner played "Corsair Duguay" in Tales of an Ancient Empire, also named Abelar: Tales of an Ancient Empire. In this movie, he had the pleasure of being reunited with Albert Pyun, his mentor from Nemesis. Gruner has also played roles in: Automatic (1994) Savate, also known as 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) Amour (2019). Gruner played "Jagger" in Escape from Paradise (2019), and "Duguay" in Cyborg Nemesis: The Dark Rift (2019), and The Target (2019).