‘Rebel Ridge’ Exclusive First Look: Aaron Pierre Teases His ‘High Velocity Action’ Turn In Netflix Film From Jeremy Saulnier

Blavity’s Shadow and Act has the first exclusive look at the upcoming film Rebel Ridge, starring The Underground Railroad and Genius MLK/X star Aaron Pierre .

Pierre, who also voices Mufasa in this winter’s Mufasa: The Lion King from Disney, stars in the Jeremy Saulnier film alongside Don Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb, David Denman, Emory Cohen, Steve Zissis, Zsané Jhé, Dana Lee, and James Cromwell.

Here’s the film’s official description:

Terry Richmond (Pierre) enters the town of Shelby Springs on a simple but urgent mission– post bail for his cousin and save him from imminent danger. But when Terry’s life’s savings is unjustly seized by law-enforcement, he’s forced to go head to head with local police chief Sandy Burnne (Johnson) and his combat-ready officers. Terry finds an unlikely ally in court clerk Summer McBride (Robb) and the two become ensnared in a deep-rooted conspiracy within the remote township. As the stakes turn deadly, Terry must call upon his mysterious background to break the department’s hold on the community, bring justice to his own family– and protect Summer in the process.

For the first look, Pierre chatted with us about his how this film and what he felt when first reading Saulnier’s script.

“The very first moment I met with Jeremy, the very first moment I read the script, which I read within minutes of it being sent to me, and I finished it in maybe 90 minutes, it was undeniable for me,” he told us exclusively. “The filmmaker was undeniable, the character was undeniable. The journey of the characters were undeniable, and the studio behind it was undeniable.”

He also spoke about how this role challenged him and is such a stark difference from much of his prior work. “I think a considerable amount, if not majority, of what I’ve done has been based on historical fact,” he said. “And in some ways, this film, although it’s a fiction story, it does make a comment on the reality of a number of people’s existence and in regards to their engagements with police. But I think in regards to this, I think it’s arguably the first time that I’ve really gotten into my action bag and engaging in this high-velocity action, tumbling, falling, jumping, cycling, running…so I’m really excited, hopefully, for people to gift us with the opportunity to engage with them and hopefully entertain them.”

Pierre plays a former marine in Rebel Ridge, and was able to use a lot of his background in martial arts for this role.

“Personally, I am an enormous fan of martial arts, and I’m deeply in love with martial arts,” he explained. “It is the most unbelievable thing in the world. I personally practice boxing. I also practice Brazilian jiu-jitsu When I was engaging with this project, Jeremy and Netflix and the whole entire team, they basically organized this tremendous stunt team that not only can do all of these tremendous and phenomenal stunts, but are also experienced in martial arts and so I had not only access to their stunt knowledge and their stunt IQ, but I also had access to their martial arts backgrounds. So we did a lot of wrestling training, we did a lot of boxing training, and the guys would allow me to really get in there and train with them and spar with them and try and exercise the reality of these martial arts in a safe environment. Of course, they were all taking it extremely easy on me, which I appreciated, but it was a really tremendous experience.”

He added, “Honestly, there’s something about when a project is so physical that really brings everyone together in every department. I’m talking like the director, the actors, the producers, crew, the studio. When something is so physical, I don’t know, it’s like a biological, unexplainable thing, but it just really creates a beautiful family environment, a very supportive environment, and an environment in which you want the project which you are working on to be the very best version of itself.”

The actor also spoke highly of co-star AnnaSophia Robb and teased their dynamic in the film. “You really cannot ask for anything more than that from a co-star [and] collaborator. I think what also is really beautiful is that organically we developed a really special friendship, and I really believe that that helped us sort of to develop an even deeper character relationship between Terry and Summer, because we had a trust and we felt safe as Aaron and AnnaSophia, She absolutely knocked it clean out the park. She killed it.”

Rebel Ridge hits Netflix on Sept. 6. Check out more photos below: