Michael Bisping shares hilarious story of Ciryl Gane angering weapons instructor on Den of Thieves 2 set
According to Michael Bisping, Ciryl Gane had a bit of fun on the Den of Thieves 2 set, although not everybody was thrilled.
Bisping and Gane appear in the sequel film that hits theaters on Friday. The former UFC middleweight champion reprises his role as Connor, while Gane makes his first appearance in the series as Pape.
During the filming, Bisping was part of a hilarious moment on set that involved Gane.
“We had to do some weapons training and the guy that was running the weapons training takes his job very, very seriously and rightly so,” Bisping told MMA Fighting. “I mean, you’re handling real weapons and stuff like that. So he was training myself and O’Shea Jackson, and he was treating us like a drill sergeant. He was screaming at us and making us walk properly so it looked legit on the film, of course. And he’s screaming in our faces, like, ‘If I ever see anyone messing around with these guns, if I see you point a gun at anybody, you are off this set!’
“Anyway, Cyril Gane was supposed to be on [with us] and his flight was delayed or something, and he showed up late, showed up halfway through this session, and he missed the screaming part about, ‘If you point a gun…’ and the man that was running it, he’s very, very good at what he does. I’m not saying anything bad about him. It’s a very serious job, and it’s not a game when you’re dealing with these kinds of weapons. Of course, there’s been accidents over the years. But Cyril missed the debrief, if you will, and he says to [Ciryl], ‘Have you ever held a gun?’
“And Cyril, in his French accent, he goes, ‘Yes, but of course,’ and he grabs the gun and he points it in his face, he goes, ‘Pa pa pa pa pa pa,’ and he starts like acting like a spy and doing like forward rolls and stuff, and the guy just had smoke coming out of his ears. He was so mad, and I was just in hysterics because this guy had just given us so much shit for so long. But anyway, Cyril Gane in the movie… Rico Verhoeven [is in it too], who I got to know a lot better. He’s an absolutely awesome guy, and a few other familiar faces as well.”
Den of Thieves 2 stars Gerard Butler as “Big Nick” O’Brien, who continues to track down criminal Donnie Wilson, played by O’Shea Jackson. The first film of the series continues to garner a following, and now around seven years later, the sequel is about to be released.
While Bisping’s role in the original was more of a cameo, the UFC color commentator — who calls the action during Saturday’s UFC Vegas 101 fight card — says his role had a little bit more to sink his teeth into.
“So Connor was, and by the way, it’s got nothing to do with Conor McGregor — although I did, I did put that together and kind of chuckle to myself when I saw the character’s name, I thought, ‘For crying out loud,’” Bisping said. “Listen, he’s a bit of a London tough guy, a bit of a guy that doesn’t operate within the confines of the law. But he was working at a diamond place as a security guard, so, of course, if you’ve seen the first movie and you know about O’Shea Jackson’s character, when he meets me in a bar, he comes up with an idea, and this is actually all based upon a true story that actually went down.
“So when we were in Tenerife shooting this, we had the guys and the police and the investigators that handled this actual robbery that the movie [reinacts] sit us all down, give us the history and go through it because they wanted it all to be as true to life as possible. It’s very, very meticulously done. It’s true to life, it’s based on a true story, but of course with guys like O’Shea Jackson and Gerard Butler involved, it’s gonna be something special.
“I was only in a few scenes, so I’m just as eager as anybody else to see the final product.”