Stunt Artist Guillermo Grispo Discusses Choreographing 'Kingsman' Fight Scenes

One of the many highlights of popular action films is the fight scenes that leave audiences craving for more. A lot of people give credit to the action star's fighting skills but what about the stunt artists who choreographed those moves?

Guillermo Grispo, a martial artist who was behind the fight scenes in the new film "Kingsman: The Secret Service," discussed his work and how he developed his set of skills.

Grispo, who hails from Argentina, has traveled to places such as Japan, Montreal, Europe, and New York to improve his craft. It was in one of these trips that he came upon the behind-the-scenes world of stunt work and choreographing fight scenes, Fox News Latino reported.

Grispo, 41, moved permanently to Canada to do small stunt parts in films while learning other forms of martial arts, such as "Russian sambo, Brazilian jiu jitsu, Filipino boxing and traditional Japanese sword fighting," the news outlet noted.

His work eventually paid off. Since then, Grispo appeared as a stunt actor in films such as "Iron Man 2," "300," "Conan," "X-Men: First Class," and "Kickass." In the Colin Firth movie "Kingsman," Grispo was credited as a fight coordinator, according to Fox News Latino.

Grispo explained that "Kingsman" director Matthew Vaughn trusted them "to have something new and refreshing when it came to developing the various fight scenes," the news outlet added. He said that his fighting style idea keeps close to what was featured in the comic book, "The Secret Service," created by Dave Gibbons and Mark Millar.

"I've had to learn other sets of skills that I didn't have before," the stunt actor told the news outlet. "I have had the fortune of meeting and working with other choreographers who have helped me learn my craft. I say that my university has been working in films."

Aside from Firth, "Kingsman" also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Taron Egerton, and Mark Strong, The Atlantic reported. Majority of the fighting scenes Grispo had in the film were shot with lead actor Firth.

"Colin was out of his comfort zone and surprised me because he came willing to do the fight movements," the stunt actor said, as quoted by Fox News Latino. "We used a little bit of (all martial arts) for the fight scenes because we must assume that a spy knows all kinds of ways to fight and defend themselves. It's all going to reflect in the film."

Grispo also recently choreographed another highly anticipated film - "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice." In a report from Digital Spy, he revealed that the movie will see Batman's excellent martial arts skills come to life, adding that Zack Snyder's adaptation of the superhero will be different from Christopher Nolan's.