Mental and physical toughness go hand in hand for fighter-turned-actress Kali Reis from Catch the Fair One and True Detective: Night Country.
Yes, it’s unabashedly corny and on-the-nose obvious to say Indigenous boxer-turned-actor Kali Reis scored a knockout in her very first movie role. But that’s exactly what she did in the edgy thriller Catch the Fair One, winner of the Audience Award at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival.
Reis herself received a special festival jury award for her breakout performance as Kaylee “K.O.” Uppashaw, a former boxer who boldly kicks ass like it has never been kicked before when she discovers her missing sister might be circulating in a trafficking network. The New York Times film critic A.O. Scott was greatly impressed by her debut: “Reis’ charisma — her willingness to show fear as well as resolve — makes Kaylee a magnetic protagonist.”
Peter Debruge of Variety agreed: “Reis supplies that lightning bolt of originality here. This may be her first big-screen role, but she’s a natural, coming on with all the intensity of a clenched fist: cheeks pierced, arms inked, shoulders hunched like an agitated honey badger ready to attack. The result is a locomotive of pain and retribution.”
Reis eventually was nominated for a prestigious Independent Spirit Award in the 2022 Best Female Lead category, an honor she accepted gratefully: “My given name ‘Mequinonoag’ means ‘Many Feathers, Many Talents’ in our Algonquian dialect. This name was given to me by my mother, Patricia ‘Gentle Rain’ Booker, member and medicine woman of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe. The strength and wisdom of our Indigenous women leaders and ancestors run deep within my warrior veins, alongside the long bloodline of resilience in our women.”
A native of Providence, Rhode Island, Reis is of both Cape Verdean and Seaconke Wampanoag descent, and she drew on both heritages while playing — once again, to great acclaim — Evangeline Navarro, the resolute Alaska state trooper who reluctantly bonds with Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster), a small-town sheriff and long-time frenemy, to solve a bizarre murder case in the HBO series True Detective: Night Country. (Her performance is literally history-making: When Emmy Award nominations were announced in July, she and Lily Gladstone of Under the Bridge were the first Indigenous women ever to be recognized in acting categories.)
“Yeah, Evangeline comes from two different worlds,” Reis explains. “She has a Dominican background and an Indigenous Inupiat background, which is something I can personally relate to, being Wampanoag and Cape Verdean, and having to deal [while growing up] with kind of not being enough for either side.” This may partly explain why, at age 14, she started training at Manfredo’s Gym in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. “Being in the boxing gym,” she told Leader Johnson of High Level Sports, “was the only place my young mind would get quiet and focused.”
One thing led to another, one knockout led to the next. She was the first Indigenous fighter to ever win the International Boxing Association middleweight crown, and she fought in the first female boxing match ever televised on HBO. Throughout her career as a fighter in the middleweight and light welterweight divisions — which she teasingly hints may not be entirely over — she achieved a record of 19-7-1 with five knockouts. Along the way, she connected with retired professional boxer Brian Cohen, who became her manager and trainer. The professional relationship became a personal one when they married on November 21, 2021 — five months after the Tribeca premiere of Catch the Fair One.
“You would think [boxing and acting] are two totally different worlds,” Reis said, “but they’re actually one and the same. There are so many parallels. I mean, boxing is such an entertainment sport or an entertainment industry in itself. We have a ring up there, it’s our stage. We have to perform. There are all kinds of acts. We have to put on a show.”
Acting, she added, requires a similar sort of preparation, dedication, and execution. Especially when you have a pro like True Detective writer-director Issa López in your corner.
“It’s like a coach creating a gameplan,” Reis said, “and you trust that story, just like you trust the gameplan. And you can make adjustments, but you practice, you rehearse. And, in the moment, there might be something that she sees or I see that the other doesn’t see. And it works. It just works.
“The repetition, my love for perfection, the love to get feedback and understand what I can do better — that’s something that I’ve been doing for over 20 years. So, it was just something I fell into. And also, there’s the fact that there are so many people in the room, but you’re focused on that one task at hand. You kind of block everything else out.”
Jodie Foster gives props to Reis’ “tenacity of spirit,” adding: “That doesn’t come from boxing. It’s a discipline that’s within you. She’s not afraid of doing it over and over again, and trying again and trying again, and trying it a different way. ... She has this fully disciplined awareness, I think.
“Plus,” Foster added with a warm laugh, “I just love her. So there’s that.”
At 38, Reis spends much of her time away from movie locations and boxing gyms as an active supporter of the Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women movement. She recently told a New York Times interviewer that “It’s always been a dream to be on Saturday Night Live,” and she would like to try a comedic movie role or two.
Right now, however, she’s veering toward the heavily dramatic, with major roles upcoming in Wind River: Rising, the eagerly awaited sequel to 2017’s Taylor Sheridan-scripted (and C&I Movie Award-winning) Wind River, and Rebuilding, writer-director Max Walker Silver’s indie drama about the restoration of a community devastated by wildfires.
Doesn’t sound like there will be many laughs in either of those, but you won’t hear Kali Reis complaining. Whenever or wherever she’s acting, “At least I’m not getting punched in the face. That’s great.”
From our October 2024 issue.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Courtesy of Getty/Michelle K. Short/HBO
