By the time Rayna Vallandingham was eight, she had become a taekwondo world champion. Yet when she looked to film and television, she struggled to find an Indian woman whose story reflected her own. The years she spent training and competing had given her a different idea of what she could become.
Now, with her roles in Cobra Kai and Street Fighter, she wants young girls watching her to have what she missed growing up: someone who makes their ambitions feel possible.
“Growing up, when I watched Indian women on screen, they were always portrayed the same way, and it was in a very nerdy way,” she says. “It was always the schoolgirl with the protective parents, and I was like: ‘That’s just not my experience at all.’ And I wanted to rewrite the slate on that and break those stereotypes.”
The American actress, whose mother is of Indian origin and father is of Dutch descent, plays Juli in director Kitao Sakurai’s new Street Fighter film. It follows her appearance as Zara Malik in the final seasooon of Netflix’s Cobra Kai, another role that drew on the martial arts skills she has been developing since childhood.
Vallandingham's parents initially enrolled her in martial arts classes to help the shy child become more confident. As her training progressed, her grandfather drove her to the dojo and she fitted sessions around the school day, sometimes returning at lunchtime and again in the evening. She went on to become a 13-time world champion.
Playing Zara brought together her sporting experience and Indian heritage. She drew on her grandparents' speech patterns to develop the character’s accent, as she told Vogue India.
Her move into Street Fighter places her in an ensemble of women with their own motivations and personalities alongside their fighting skills. Sakurai describes them as strong and complicated, an approach Vallandingham welcomed.
“The first time I read the script, I was like: 'Yes, they hit the nail on the head,'” she says. “So I was levitating. I was just so happy with it.”
The film also brought together actresses at very different stages of their martial arts training. Vallandingham arrived with years of competition behind her, while Callina Liang, who plays Chun-Li, was making her first action film.
“Playing the character and prepping for Chun-Li, it changed my life completely,” Liang says. “I went into weightlifting, I was training [in] stunts, martial arts … both things now are a huge part of my life, so I've got to thank the role for that.
“It taught me that it’s amazing to be strong and feel capable, and now I feel safer when I’m on the street alone at night, which is just great.”
Vallandingham hopes that seeing women in these roles will encourage girls to consider what they might be capable of. She has had young fans approach her to explain what her work means to them, encounters she says leave her crying on the spot.
“Representation is so important because if I can have a daughter one day and have her look up to me and realise almost inherently that she can do anything she wants and there’s no box she has to fit in, that would mean the world to me,” Vallandingham says. “So that’s my mission statement.”
That life-changing moment of recognition may have already come for some girls, according to David Dastmalchian, who plays M Bison.
“I love that my nine-year-old daughter got to see the screening of the film sitting next to Rayna and Callina, and was just like: ‘Wow! That’s so awesome,’” he says. “It’s such a cool feeling.”
Street Fighter is now in cinemas across the Middle East