Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with Semper Fi’s Sean Mullin

Real life hero Sean Mullin is an exciting new voice in the world of filmmaking and a force to be reckoned with. For his new film, Semper Fi, Sean is joining forces with director Henry Alex Rubin to tell the story of five Marines whose brotherhood is put to the test after one of them has a run in with the law. It’s one of the year’s best releases and stars Jai Courtney, Nat Wolff, Finn Wittrock, Beau Knapp, Arturo Castro, and Leighton Meester. Pop Culturalist had the honor of chatting with Sean Mullin about his transition into filming, the fourteen-year journey to make Semper Fi, and what he hopes audiences take away.

PC: You’ve had an interesting career path that’s led you from the military into filmmaking. Can you tell us about that transition?

Sean: I went to West Point for my undergraduate degree and then I served as an artillery officer in Germany for a couple of years. In the summer of ’99, I transferred to the New York Army National Guard. I had a little more time on my hands because I initially thought I was going to be a lawyer. Instead of studying for the LSAT, I ended up spending all of my free time at comedy clubs doing standup comedy, improv theatre, and writing these screenplays. I was learning the craft of screenwriting, then September 11th happened. 



We were attacked and I was an officer in Manhattan. That was my job. My unit was on 68th and Park Avenue, so I was right there. I was the only officer in my unit to live in Manhattan, so I was the first one to get over there. I ended up spending the better part of the next year down at Ground Zero. While I was working in Ground Zero, I was still doing comedy when I could. I also applied for graduate school and I got accepted into Columbia University’s MFA program for film directing. It’s always been a farfetched dream of mine to get a degree and become a filmmaker, and I got accepted! I began writing and directing a lot of stuff, mostly shorts and product videos. I graduated and moved to L.A. and I’ve been chugging away ever since.




I got an email out of the blue from an agency named William Morris. He said he represented an award-winning director named Henry Alex Rubin, who had just won an award at Sundance and an Oscar for his documentary, Murderball. He was looking for a writer who was in the military and heard I was still attending Columbia University’s program, so he wanted to sit down with me. I sat with Henry and he read the script I wrote. I had written a screenplay in grad school about two brothers who played rugby at West Point. Henry really liked the script and thought I was the right guy to bring on board to bring Semper Fi to life. We started our collaboration in Summer of ’05. A hundred drafts and fourteen years later, it’s finally out.



PC: What inspired Semper Fi?

Sean: Henry Alex Rubin’s Murderball had just come out. At the end, they go to Walter Reed and the guys on the quadriplegic rugby team end up playing with a bunch of guys who are veterans. From there, he came up with the idea of having a bunch of Marine reservists who are back from war break their buddy out of jail. That was the idea. Being a documentarian, he didn’t want to write it alone. He wanted to write it with a screenwriter who had military experience, so he got in touch with me. As they say, the rest is history.


PC: This is the first screenplay that you’ve been approached to write. What’s been the biggest takeaway for you from this experience?

Sean: Oh my goodness. Well, I’m in the Writers Guild now and have been hired to write multiple screenplays. I also wrote and directed a feature film that came out a few years ago called Amira & Sam. We won a bunch of awards on the festival circuit and got bought by Drafthouse. That got me over the hump as a filmmaker. Those experiences allowed us to elevate the screenplay to a place where we feel really good about it.



PC: What do you hope audiences walk away with after seeing Semper Fi?
Sean: I hope audiences have a renewed appreciation for the importance of male bonding and brotherhood. I give kudos to our producers, David Lancaster and Karina Miller, for stepping up to the plate to make this movie.

In the first act, it can appear to be guys doing guy things, but I feel like the film is about love. It’s the love between these group of guys and the love between these two brothers. I’m so happy it’s coming out and I’m really proud of this film. I think it’s a pretty accurate representation of the bonds that men share and how these bonds are complicated. They’re not black and white—there’s a lot of grey.

One of my favorite moments, which we wrote in the fourth or fifth draft, is when one of the guys contemplates backing out. I said to Henry, “We should do that.” It sort of just came to me. I said it should be Milk; it has to be the guy who has a family. It really elevated the stakes and the tension, and it felt real. Everyone in the story has their own arc. For example, Jaeger appears to be vein at the beginning and all about himself, but after his injury, he accepts that he’s a different guy and person. He opens up to his old ex-girlfriend about it, which is complex since she’s engaged, but it’s not easy on her. We tried to give everybody some sort of moral, ethical, or emotional complexity.



PC: Besides Semper Fi, do you have any other upcoming projects that you can chat about?

Sean: I’ve got several, which is exciting! I’m currently directing a feature length documentary about Yogi Berra, who was this famous baseball player on the New York Yankees. As far as fiction, I just got hired to write a screenplay about a famous army general, which hasn’t been announced yet—I have to keep that one under wraps. I’ve got another script that I wrote that I’ll be finishing and directing hopefully in the spring. It’s on the narrative/comedy side. I also have another screenplay that Henry might take on. I wrote it for him years ago and he’s very excited about it. And I think at some point, I’m going to write about my experience at Ground Zero and in standup comedy. I’m just trying to take it a day at a time right now.

Semper Fi is out now in select theaters and on VOD.