How can you be so disgusting? That will have been the reaction of many viewers to Gerard Butler’s Criminal Squad role Big Nick. In the 2018 action hit, the star plays a brutal, sleazy and unscrupulous investigator who is on the trail of a group of elite criminals led by Donnie (O’Shea Jackson Jr.). Now it’s Butler and Jackson can finally be seen in the cinema again with Criminal Squad 2.
For Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr., the action sequel Criminal Squad 2 was a tough test
In the Moviepilot conversation, they tell us how tough a film shoot can be, which action stunts they felt they barely survived and how Butler’s most disgusting role has changed thanks to the interaction with Jackson’s character. They both look like they went through extreme efforts while filming… and yet they still had a lot of fun.
Check out the trailer for Criminal Squad 2 here:
Criminal Squad 2 – Trailer 2 (German) HD
Moviepilot: Criminal Squad 2 is a much more relaxed film than its predecessor and has a real holiday feeling. Was the whole shoot just an excuse to relax in the Canary Islands?
Gerard Butler: You’ve clearly never been to a film shoot before. Your assessment almost makes me a little angry [lacht]. No, seriously: The Canary Islands were great, but filming is really hard work. And this one was particularly difficult. All those break-in scenes. We went through a lot of madness. And a lot of training. It was very, very hot and we were in these wetsuits. I thought I was having a heart attack. Even after a break, your heart was still racing the next take. And we did that for days. There were chases that were really dangerous. So it wasn’t relaxing. But we had a lot of fun.
O’Shea Jackson: [Die Kanaren] were just a nice background. The predecessor takes place in Los Angeles, but was filmed in Atlanta. This time we couldn’t fool around: we had planned on a European setting. The landscape, the architecture, the narrow streets, you can’t fake it. It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever filmed. But it also caused difficulties. It’s a hurdle when 86 percent of the crew doesn’t speak your language. It was one of the greatest times in my life. But it was also the most challenging filming I’ve ever had.
Some of the stunts in the film are hair-raising. Were there any dangerous situations during filming?
Jackson: Gerard hated the swaying as we drove the cars through the switchbacks [lacht].
Butler: During the chase, I hung out of the car window, had to load my gun, turn around, and climb out of the car backwards. And the car kept swinging towards the tunnel wall. It felt like my head was about to be smashed into a wall at a hundred miles an hour. That was one thing. And then we went around these hairpin bends, we did that alone about forty times. I just had a bad feeling. Right next to it it went down 2600 meters! But O’Shea and the stunt drivers did a great job.
Jackson: I’m not a fan of helicopters [lacht]. And we had to get into a lot of them.
Gerard, your character Nick has been described by some as your most disgusting role. Do you agree?
Butler: In the first film he’s quite a beast, very rough. And he has to be, um [seiner Gang] to belong to the regulators. These are not typical police officers. His advantage is that he thinks like a villain and lives in the gutter with them. But there was also a human side, even childhood trauma. And you can see more of it in part 2. More uncertainty, more vulnerability. More humor. Thanks to Donnie, he thinks about what the heck he’s doing with his life. In the interaction with O’Shea, my character simply gained color.
O’Shea, your character Donnie has completely changed. In part 1 she taps beer in the Hofbräu, now she is a criminal mastermind. Did you have to change your approach?
Jackson: Absolutely. Life imitated art in this case. Criminal Squad was my third film ever. I was just a young actor trying to find his way. I didn’t have any tactics or anything. I just kept my head down and wanted to do my job. Donnie felt the same way. Now I have a lot more experience. I had a method to empathize with Donnie’s new perspective: I studied one of the greatest mixed martial arts fighters of all time, Jon ‘Bones’ Jones. I looked at how he was before the fight. He’s ice cold. He is incredibly focused. Nothing bothers him. He doesn’t smile much, he’s completely focused and you never know what he’s thinking. But you feel how focused he is. My uncle was also on the set of Criminal Squad 2 [und wusste von meiner Methode]. Occasionally he would stand behind me and whisper, ‘Jon Bones! Jon Jones! Johnny Bones!’ So he encouraged me to stay calm and focused.
Butler: I, on the other hand, stood behind him and said: ‘Cinderella!’ [lacht].
Criminal Squad 3 has not yet been officially confirmed. But do you have any idea how the story could continue?
Butler: We don’t say that [lacht].
Jackson: Maybe theft? [Lacht] And about who you trust. Theft and suspense. Everything with great attention to detail.
Butler: He’s right. And like O’Shea said, Donnie now has a new perspective. We turned this franchise as inside out as we could. It’s still the same franchise, but it offers a completely different experience. And I hope that in Part 3 we can reinvent the wheel again and ask ourselves: ‘Where do we go from here?’ Now that it’s become a big thing, we can take it further in all sorts of directions. There are still so many opportunities for break-ins, buddy cop stories, all of it.
Criminal Squad 2 has been in cinemas since January 16, 2025.