This weekend Netflix debuts their new action comedy flick The Union, starring Mark Wahlberg, Halle Berry, Mike Colter, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jessica De Gouw, Alice Lee, Jackie Earle Haley, and J.K. Simmons.

Source: Courtesy / Netflix

The film stars Wahlberg as Mike, a construction worker who is happy living a simple life in his native New Jersey – when his long-lost high school sweetheart, Roxanne (Halle Berry), shows up with more on her mind than romance. Knowing he’s the right man for the job, she recruits Mike on a dangerous intelligence mission in Europe that thrusts them back together into a world of spies and high-speed car chases, with sparks flying along the way.

Check out the trailer below:



Global Grind Sr. Content Director Janeé Bolden spoke with The Union star Mike Colter about his role as “prickly” special agent Nick Faraday who is keeping a secret.

“He’s a man who’s got a little secret,” Colter told Global GRind. “We all figure out what it is later but he’s stirring the action and I think he’s having fun with it. He’s a little prickly, so I have fun with that because I think being unlikable sometimes is fun. I think also being someone who is who’s a little selfish is fun.”

The Union

Source: Courtesy / Netflix

It turns out that the secret agent life isn’t too foreign for Colter, whose brother only recently retired from a role in the Secret Service.

“He served, I think 4 Presidents — the first Bush, the second one, and Clinton and he just retired from Kamala’s detail I think that’s five now,” Colter said, before sharing that if he were to join a government agency, his preference wouldn’t be the Secret Service.

“I gotta go CIA, just because I feel like they know everything and I feel like they stay out of the fray most of the time,” Colter explained. “I don’t want to stand around a lot, this comes to like the Secret Service and my brother. Too much standing, too much watching. I can’t do all that standing up — I need a chair, I like to lean.”

Colter’s character Faraday doesn’t do much standing around at all in The Union, but despite being keen to do some of his own stunts in the film, he was definitely of the mindset to work smarter and not harder, opting to allow a stunt double to step in when it simply made more sense.

“We all have really capable stunt people and we all wanted to do our own stunts and did them in certain takes,” Colter explained. “They would always do another take with the stunt person but I’d always watch the final edit to see who they use and and things like that. I was always game. I’m like, ‘Look I stay in shape — I’m ready.’ I like to flip and run. If I can’t do it or I don’t feel comfortable, I will tell you. I’m not that person to say, ‘Oh I can do that…’ and really don’t feel comfortable doing it. I have limits and I will do whatever it is that I feel like is right for me within reason, because there’s a certain point where the audience can’t see your face anyway, so there’s no payoff. There’s moments where he [Faraday] goes into the water. I could have easily done that, but from the distance they would have showed you couldn’t tell whether it was going to be me or the double, so why do it?”

The Union

Source: Courtesy / Netflix

Even if he didn’t do EVERY stunt, there was one in particular that would have made the child version of Mike pretty happy.

“The most fun part was probably stealing the purple Porsche,” Colter told GlobalGrind. “Stealing the car was fun because once you get in the car, it’s like, ‘Oh this is what this is! When I was a kid watching movies this is what you want to be doing. You want to be in a car chase and you want to be like driving down the road, side by side. You just want to have that rush and I think that was one of the most fun parts of it.”

If there is one character in The Union who is having a TIME it’s definitely Faraday — but you’ll have to watch to see what we mean.

The Union is streaming now on Netflix