Gina Carano’s fighting spirit

Gina Carano was born to fight, said Roger Moore in The Dallas Morning News. “I can take a punch. I was blessed with a very good jaw,” says the mixed martial artist turned actress. “And [I’m] hardheaded. Literally. A hard melon.” As a child, Carano—the daughter of a former Dallas Cowboys quarterback—would provide the entertainment at family get-togethers: Sofas would be cleared from the living room, and little Gina would wrestle, and beat, her male cousins, one by one. “They were fascinated by how I could handle myself.”

In her early 20s, Carano took up Muay Thai kickboxing and realized she could make a career out of her violent talents. “Five months later I found myself in a gym in San Francisco getting ready to fight another girl.” She won the bout, and went on to punch, kick, and choke her way to victory in cage fight after cage fight.

Recently, her combat skills caught the attention of director Steven Soderbergh, who cast the 29-year-old in his action movie Haywire. But while fearless in the ring, Carano became a quivering wreck when asked to kiss co-star Michael Fassbender. “My face was completely shaking,” she says. “I was going, ‘Oh my, Oh my god, Oh my god!’ But it was nice. He was so genuine, and so beautiful.”

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