“It’s Made For the Fans!” The Cast of ‘Street Fighter’ on Crazy Action & Video Game Adaptation

Regardless if you're a fan of the game, you played the game, you've heard of the game, you haven't heard of the game, this movie, like, it's made for the fans, but it's also so open to anyone that's never heard of it before. Brother, I failed you. Growing within me. You're not my brother. There's something. What are you waiting for? Forgive me. Hello everyone and welcome to The Big Ticket. I am Mark Ellis and I'm here with the cast of Street Fighter. Tickets are on sale right now at Fandango. First question right out of the gate. Kitau, I think you'd be a good judge for this. Who has the best Hadouken out of all of you? I feel like Andrew's got a leg up. I feel like Koji has more practice. Without a doubt. One guy who does it. If the answer was something else, we'd be in trouble. Well, you're the one guy that does it professionally, but I feel like on set you must have heard maybe in dressing rooms. One guy that does it. Very unintentionally. There's only one guy that does it. I mean, you're the guy they're all trying to emulate. So what does a professional Hadouken sound like? They don't have licensing to do it, so none of you should be actually doing it. That's right. We're not legally allowed. Eric Andre has a good Hadouken. Does he? I can see that. It's his thing. It sounds like someone is dying. Yeah. It's a bit deathly. You'd hear it from his trailer. I don't know what was going on in Eric Andre's trailer, but sometimes I'd walk by and I'd hear it sounded like a Hadouken. You all are so professional. I couldn't even get Ryu to do a Hadouken. The only person that actually said it was the director. You can't get Ryu to do a Hadouken? You can't get him again. Can you give me a Hadouken? Hold on. What do you mean you couldn't get me to do a Hadouken? I tried gently. I nudged. What did you say? That's not a nudge, dude. This is a big crazy cash movie. Get the set you're sitting in front of. It would be the great honor of my lifetime if you would bless me and our audience with a Hadouken. Come on. But then I'm like, let's negotiate a little. Because we're selling the movie and we want people to come to the cinema to see it. Right now, we've seen it. What happens right before it? The first two syllables. Oh, the tantric experience of the Hadouken. Like the right here. That's right. Explain that to us. Do the Hadouken. I'll tease it and then they'll see the rest of it by coming to watch it in IMAX. 4DX. Watch how I add on to it. Get it. To the wide camera right there. Right there. To that one right there. I always listen to the camera guy. Get it. Hadouken! If you want to see the Ken, you've got to come see our movie October 16th. You made him do all the work. You got the Hadouken if you want to see Ken. If you want the Duken, come. If you want the Duken, you've got to see it in theaters. Ken's going to be doing nothing. You won't see Ken doing anything. You manage me. Most video games you might have an iconic character or two. Street Fighter, every character is known, is iconic, is beloved. So, for each of you, just quick answer, first thing that comes to your head. What trait of your character were you most excited to bring to the big screen? Your friends cannot help you now, Noah. God! God! What trait of Ken? I don't know what trait of Ken. I think the fact that I got to eat a whole bunch of beans. Being awesome. That's pretty much his trait. There's a deep sadness. The wound. There was a wound. I guess, yeah, that's a personality. It was the fact that I got to get jacked. Yeah, I mean, you got to eat a lot of protein. Yeah, you got pork. It was disgusting. All day. No, no, he smelled like a pet store. Schultz's farts were crazy. Yeah, but I always fart. He was farting out loud. You! Isn't that more honorable? That's my Hadouken. That's like a more honorable thing to do. It's just a Hadouken. I finally got someone else to say Hadouken. Even if it was in a fart. Hadoukens are easy with you. You had a big challenge on this movie. Just because you're the one that's kind of keeping those two in line. So how much fun was that as Chun-Li? I don't know if it was fun or it was a lot of work. I mean, like, you know, keeping these guys just level-headed. Sometimes I kind of just let them. Who had more work to do? Chun-Li keeping Ken and Ryu in line? Or Yoha and Andrew in line on set? Me. You had the taller cast. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think Ken and Ryu are more, like, tame than these two in real life. They're more tame. Koji's tame. What was Koji's name? Oh, you wait till you see. You wait till you see. Spend a month and a half with just these two guys? Oh, man. That's right. For the first six weeks, the three of us were there before production. And it was just the three of us together. What's that family bonding experience like? Do you guys become better friends? Do you become enemies? Do you go through all of it in those three months? She hates us. No, I love it. By the end of it, though, it was just us girls. No, it was just us boys. That's true. I became one of the boys. That's right. We were doing arts together. We were doing recovery stuff. We were getting Korean barbecue. There was a lot of eating. More steak. I would be hanging out with you guys, and every 20 minutes, you'd be ordering chicken. It's true. It was on a clock. Kalina grew her thighs, not just for the start of production, but by the time... Come on. I did measure. This is a crazy flex, and she won't say this, so I'm going to say it for her. From the first day of production to the last, she put on six and a half more centimeters on both of her thighs. On her thighs. Each leg. You get prep before a movie. You prep to it. Usually, by the time you say action, you're only going to lose weight or barely sustain. The idea that she was able to also continue putting on weight, like muscle, is absolutely ridiculous. There was a team of scientists following her around every five minutes. This is like DoorDash people coming to me every five minutes. If we're talking centimeters added during training for the movie... Let's say, Mark. You must have measured a bicep. Somebody must have measured their bicep before... They were comparing every day. What about eight inches in thick? What about 12 years loyal? Cody, I see you over there, just shaking your head. This thing is going off the rails. I don't know. I would say, in terms of biceps, these two right here, they were the bicep kings on set. For sure. They set a mark where everyone saw them. David and I actually spoke about this. Everyone felt we had to be the most porked we could be on the day because it was a very porked set. It was a very porked set. A lot of beef. I didn't know what porked meant when I was growing up. Then I was like, now I love getting porked. There had been definitions as often as possible. Look at pork, Kyle. Look at pork. I think I pitched that to you. I remember I was flying and I was reading it and it was like, I was like, porked. This feels like the right word to say. There wasn't one day that we weren't porked on that set. It's a porked movie. You're directing. It's a porked movie. Usually as a host for one of these things, there's one safe person to go to to look at, to get everything back on the rails. That's not true with the Street Fighter cast. There's no harbor that I can go to. I'm going to try to lean on you, David. I'm so safe. I am the safe space for this. I am the mature, responsible. What were you guys doing? Oh. What were we doing? You were writing a manifesto. I was writing a manifesto. With this film, I was more concerned with getting in the head of Bison because his body isn't where he's supposed to be yet. That was the mission for me. I genuinely, this is PG? It was so fun. Pork and fun. I mostly interacted with this genius over here. I had a bunch of the dolls and the team around. That was really fun for me. You've got all these, even background people, it's so fun to get them engaged and have them figure out, hey dude, I know you're standing there for eight hours today, but what's your character's name? Why do you want to die for me? He'd be like, let's do it here. That was my daily thing. You're talking about maybe top three all time, if not the biggest video game villain ever. How do you rectify that in your head? I need to bring this to the big screen in a way that's going to please the fans and also welcome in new generations. First of all, top three? He's number one. I was thinking King Koopa, but even that, it's probably got to be M. Bison. Can I tell a David story real quick? I don't know if it was the first day I met David or we were having dinner, something like that. I was like, so what were you doing to prep for it? I'm a big fan of David, so I was like, what are you doing to prep for it? He comes in and he's like, dude, I was just watching a lot of Bison videos. I was like, oh cool, M. Bison the character. He goes, no, the animal. I go, what? I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes, yeah, they can't move their neck I don't even know what character my animal is. My animal, my character, whatever. But it was a very different, that's how serious he took it. You'll see that on screen. He doesn't move his neck? Not that much. A whole universe of logic around M. Bison and Shadaloo. It was a cape buffalo first of all, but thank you Andrew. It was a cape buffalo that I became obsessed with the animal, but in the movement of Shadaloo, the animal is first. Got to figure out where you came from. Very fun lore about the movie and the video game is the M. Bison character was never named M. Bison. He was named Vega. In the original version. In the Japanese version of the game. And it still is that way. And it's still called Vega. But then Street Fighter 2 came out and we got a different kind of Vega. In Street Fighter 2, they're just alternate names in Japan and they call him Mike Tyson. Did I say Mike Tyson? Everything else we've said during this interview, I think Mike Tyson is just fine. It's just a character switch. Can we talk about it? Can we spoil it for the world? What? Can we spoil what everybody already knows? People know, yeah. They know it. This is a pretty good tease. Balrog. M. Bison was Mike Tyson and they were like, yo, who releases this in America? They might know. So they just did a little swap. You think I'm making this up? No, no. Wikipedia that. It's a true story. They did musical chairs with the names and then David started to act like a bison. Even as you're joking about his prep, it's clear that you prepped for this role as well, Andrew. Guys, I, yeah, I did. Maybe not for your role, but shout out the Ukrainian baby here. The bonnet. No, the guy, I remember the, Cale, shout out Cale, Cale goes, listen, I have a role in this movie, Street Fighter, I think you're going to be perfect for it. And I'm like, okay. And naturally your ego starts going like, am I gay or am I real? What am I going to be in this? And then he goes, it's Dan Hibiki. And I was like, who the hell is that? And then I look it up and I had to call him and be like, what exactly about me is perfect for this role? Like, what do you think that I can do so well here? And hopefully it was something else. It was. It certainly was. You training every day is one of the most fun things ever because everyone trained for different fights and their version, Koji's beating somebody up, Noah's beating somebody up, Colleen's beating somebody up. When I saw what his stunt training was, it was just him falling backwards, and a pink bonnet, and a pink bonnet. But people don't talk about that enough. You have to practice getting your ass kicked as much as you have to practice kicking somebody else's. It's a skill. I got you. You get your ass kicked in this movie. He's a big strong boy. You go 0 for it in the movie? Listen, I don't want to spoil the movie. Don't ruin the movie. He does good. Maybe a post-credits scene where he lands one. Listen, we sacrifice a lot. I don't know. I did. Let me describe to you where I was. I was laying in a body pool, multiple men just laying on one another. We had been taken out by Bison's crew. This was a big moment for Colleen and this was a moment we were trying to be real serious and quiet as they all got their lines. Schultz kept farting. Schultz just kept loudly, loudly. Fart humor is not my thing. And I kind of thought him as a sophisticated comic, it wouldn't be his thing. But big fart humor. I didn't let the smell out. It's only the sound. So there we were. So I'm laying down in this and he's just ripping them and then these lines continuously are being messed up and stepped on and we're doing our best here but then I look down at my phone and my child had been born. Well, congratulations. It was a great moment. Thank you so much. I remember that. I underplayed it a little bit. We smoked some cigars. I was still whispering as if we hadn't busted the take already viciously. I was going to say, after you announced the news, did Andrew congratulate you with the celebratory ripping one? Instead, we smoked a very nice cigar on set and Orville smoked one with us. It was a good moment. Vidget would enter the set and I saw a punch. I wish Vidget was here. Where is Vidget? Our Dawson is so awesome. He's coming. I see the trailer and I see that Ryu has this fight scene with Blanca. So what's that like to fight somebody like Jason Momoa's Blanca? What was that like on set versus how it actually looks in the movie? I mean, we can say how it was actually filming it. Yes, we shot everything practically. So Jason took PPC-157. And DMT. DMT. It wasn't the orange peptide, it was the green peptide. It's not just you, Nolan. We're doing things practically over here too. Noah, I'm looking at you. It looks like from the trailer that we get that really cool mini game in the game scene. What's it like beating up a car? Well, I think that's one example where we got to just kind of sit around a table and over the course of the movie make sure we're put into the film. You know, the beating up the car secret level. And that was sick. That was my first day on set too. Really? My kids were with me and we walked to set and my kid freaked out. He was like, Dad, he's beating up the car. He's like, we can do that? Can I beat up our car? That was an important part of a lot of people's childhoods. And those elements of fun things that aren't so serious that are such a part of the game. We wanted to celebrate those things and bring them to life on the screen. That's just one example of so many of those core memories that we're trying to put forward. It's an exciting thing. If you play the game when you were a kid, if you play the game now, whatever, stuff like that means you really care I'm curious for you, how does Guile's fighting style contrast with a Cody Rhodes in the ring sort of fighting style? Guile is a charge character. I don't know if anyone, maybe that's too deep of a cut for the game itself. But when you played the game back in the day, you had to hold the button down a good old three seconds before you popped that flash kick off. So I am not a charge character but this Smash Mouth ball, this is a wide receiver right here. Guile's Smash Mouth, so I was more in your face, slide kick, things of that nature. Does that make any sense? It's for the first time in this interview, which is almost 20 minutes, I feel like we made some sense. Guile's Smash Mouth, and when you ask somebody one thing about each of their characters, we never even got one. Guile is all American. You can feel it just watching. You can taste the freedom almost coming off of the screen in Guile. And he just mentioned it. If you just see this trailer, there's so many things in the trailer and in the movie that are little fun, Easter eggs, full nods to the minigame. I didn't even realize until I watched the trailer the big pan up, the skyscrapers from the original opening crawl of the game. Katao went all in for the fighting game community just through all the different iterations to check those boxes. And this was a blast. I'm sure you can tell. You didn't even ask Mark if we played the game on set and who won most of the time. My last question here. You never even asked that question. Who played the game on set the most and who was the best at Street Fighter? What are you going to say? I loved playing in costume because they set up a console for us off set. So I would walk over there in costume We were all in costume. I'm so committed. Did we tee this up because you were good at it? Is that what we wanted to do? Let me do it again. Nakayama-san was great. So Nakayama-san, the director of Street Fighter 6, he's kind of like the godfather. He visited Sat. A little cameo maybe. But he visited Sat and played Street Fighter and I'll say a little dog walked me. And I thought, it's your game. Invite him into the ring sometime. Give me a little something. Just the two rounds and then, oh good, you want to play again? No, I'm not in. Just destroyed me. But on set you were really good. I played him. With Dan. And when you choose Dan that's usually a sign of disrespect. It's like choosing an MLS team in FIFA. I swear Andrew Schultz is the winner of the Street Fighter competition. I never said that. I don't want this to be about me. You've made it about you. I'm a fan of the game. What I think is so sick too is that regardless if you're a fan of the game, you played the game, you heard of the game, you haven't heard of the game, this movie, it's made for the fans but it's also so open to anyone that's never heard of it before. It's so accessible. It's an absurd, wild, zany, high octane film and it's just fun. My son knows the game well and he loved it. My daughter has never played the game, doesn't know anything about Street Fighter. It's now her favorite movie. This was a great dress rehearsal for the interview we're about to shoot. Thank you guys so much. Hey Mark, before we wrap up, do you want to hear who was most dedicated to their character on the set? Yes, he does. Don't get me wrong, you're a magical actor but you would break out of Bison when you were out of character. Who stayed in? I'm going to go with him. This was very impressive. Koji lived it. Koji still is in character. It never breaks out. Dude, he got horny. No, dude, do you remember that? Because he was celibate. No, it was like he was training for a fight. In his head, he was training for a fight and he would have to walk it off because he can't go to a fight. Remember you would go to the beach? We would get photos. He would go to the beach and he would just stare into the water. 4 o'clock in the morning, we'd be like, his assistant would be like, he's at the beach again. Because his assistant has to follow him. So he'd walk to the beach. All the forking on set and Andrew Koji kept a straight face during it. You guys are fantastic. I'm excited to see the movie. Tickets are on sale right now at Fandango.