Actor Andrew Koji was no doubt cast as Ryu in the upcoming action film Street Fighter because he suits the part well, having been trained in martial arts. But in a way, it may have been destined from the very beginning. “I was born the exact same year the first Street Fighter game came out, 1987,” he says in an interview exclusive to Rolling Stone Philippines.
Set in 1993, Street Fighter follows Ryu (Koji) and his friend and rival Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) as they are pulled into the World Warrior Tournament by the mysterious Chun-Li (Callina Liang). The cast is an eclectic mix that includes WWE stars Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes alongside David Dastmalchian, Eric André, 50 Cent, Jason Momoa, Orville Peck, Vidyut Jammwal, and more. At the film’s helm is Kitao Sakurai, best known for directing The Eric André Show.
Koji has spent well over a decade working as an actor on film, TV, and theater. In 2013, he did stunt work for Fast & Furious 6, and in 2022, he played the Yakuza member Yuichi/The Father in David Leitch’s 2022 film Bullet Train. With Street Fighter, he finally takes on a lead role that could make him a household name. But for him, playing a beloved video game character is more than that.
“The pitfall of a character like Ryu is that he could become an archetype — the stoic, serious martial artist,” he says. “The question was, ‘How do you make that interesting, three-dimensional, layered and human?’”
Here, Koji talks about his competitive and supportive dynamic with Centineo, training for Street Fighter’s fight scenes, and why he hopes his version of Ryu will resonate with the next generation of Asian fans.
Apparently, on set, you and Noah Centineo, who plays Ryu’s friend and rival, Ken, were extremely competitive all the time. Is that true?
Yeah, we fought everywhere. We fought in the gym, in the sauna, at barbecues, on set, off set. Even last night we had a verbal spar, texting each other. I give him a lot of shit, which is just as it should be, given the characters we’re playing!
You seem to know Ryu inside and out. Did you play the original Street Fighter video game a lot as a kid?
Oh yes. In fact, I was born the exact same year the first Street Fighter game came out, 1987. So, I didn’t play the original, but I did play the second. I was a gamer. I am a gamer. I just have less time for it these days. I wasn’t very good at Street Fighter, but I always played as Ryu because he was Japanese and [as a kid] he looked how I’d like to have looked. Ryu looked badass, essentially. And he was one of the few Asian characters that we had to play as, growing up. Ironically, I was probably more of a Tekken guy as a kid because I found it easier than Street Fighter! Although I’ve gotten a bit better at it now.
So, as a Ryu fan yourself, what was it like, walking out onto set as him?
Honestly, initially I had quite a lot of doubt that I could pull it off. Ryu is iconic. There is a lot of pressure playing a character who has lived so long in the minds of fans, mine included. But I did a lot of bulking, which meant that eventually the gi [the traditional, loose-fitting white karate outfit worn during practice and competitions] and bandana felt like they fit right.
The first time I maybe had real confidence in it was the first time that Noah and I did the camera test. We saw that back and we thought, “Okay… we can do this.” At first, this character and film felt like a hard tone to find. Because the tone for Street Fighter is kind of a balancing act. There are serious sides to it, but it’s also very fun and almost cartoonishly comical sometimes. But when we did that camera test, all of us felt like we had the tone down. More importantly, it felt like that first image had the energy of Street Fighter. And that was critical. That balancing act naturally led us there as filming went on.
Kitao Sakurai, the director of Street Fighter, has said he wanted to dive into the psychology of these characters. How would you describe Ryu’s psychology?
There is a lot going on with Ryu. He is struggling with a lot. And I really did go quite deep with
him, to unpack him and then communicate all that in a really concise way. He’s kind of like Mas Oyama, who was a real guy, a legend who founded Kyokushin Karate. He was basically who I based Ryu on, because Mas Oyama wandered. He was a wanderer. Also, Miyamoto Musashi, who was the wandering swordsman with the two swords. I read a lot of his work, like The Book of Five Rings [the 1645 classic text on martial arts, strategy and philosophy]. I’d also been talking to Cale Boyter [producerProducerThe person who shapes how a record sounds, from arranging and recording to guiding performances and making creative choices in the studio. A great producer can bring out the bestGo to Producer Glossary] about the movie for about a year, six months before I was cast, so I was soft-prepping in the background.
Because I really wanted the role, I wanted to make sure I understood Ryu on the deepest level. And actually, I do understand Ryu on a deep level. Back then, I didn’t have much of a social life because I was working so much and dealing with [my own] stuff. So, my life was quite like his. There were a lot of crossovers because my life became training and work. Ryu is also dealing with the Satsui no Hado, which translates as the darkness within. He is someone struggling with a darkness inside him; that could be rage, anger, depression, all these things.
But he’s also someone who, through discipline, essentially aims for a goal of self-mastery. That’s the driving force in his life. These fights for him are not about fame. You look at what he did after he won the first Street Fighter tournament in the first game — he walked away. He wasn’t happy with it. That was a failure to him. So, he is the exact opposite of Ken. He contrasts so much with him. Ken is almost like the modern-day man, the influencer, the guy who’s super focused on his image – although, deep within, he is someone else. But Ryu is not about the fame. He’s not about the attention [or] the money. Ryu is just about trying to better himself through martial arts and combat.
So, in some ways, was playing Ryu almost therapeutic for you?
You know what, it’s weird. I’m not Method at all. But you do carry around the thoughts of a character quite a lot. The pitfall of a character like Ryu is that he could become an archetype — the stoic, serious martial artist. The question was, “How do you make that interesting, three-dimensional, layered and human?” Because fans know he is. And hopefully together we’ve made him really nuanced and deep. That’s important because there’s probably some Asian or half-Asian kid out there looking at this character, and I want him to work for them.
As a trained martial artist yourself, what were your favorite classic Ryu moves to pull off on screen?
Obviously, there was the Hadoken [Ryu’s ‘ki blast’ move, often referred to as a blue fireball] which was great to be a part of. We actually trained in a bunch of different karate styles, from Shotokan to Goju-ryu, and played around with all different kinds of movements. On set, to be honest, I just thought they were going to put [special effects] in between my hands, but I in fact had to hold a wire lighting reference! I had to hold what was, essentially, a makeshift light bulb. It wasn’t fun at the time, but it looks amazing in the film! Portraying Ryu allowed me to blend my craft of being an actor alongside the training I’ve done in martial arts.
What made Kitao Sakurai the perfect director to bring the Street Fighter world to life? As a fan of the game, are you happy with the results?
I’ve been working in the industry for 20 years and this was one of the best teams I’ve ever worked with. What makes Kitao so good is that he is so openly collaborative. With him, [the] best idea always wins. There is no ego with him. Because of that, he gets the respect of everyone. Also, he genuinely loves the Street Fighter world and tries always to challenge it and to go deeper with it.
When it came to you and Noah, presumably your training regimes got competitive. With that in mind, who can bench press more?
You know what? Our dynamic was so funny. There are three aspects to the training. There’s the muscle, aesthetic part. Then there’s the proper martial arts part. And then there’s the choreography, the action-storytelling part. Obviously, I’ve got more experience with the martial arts genre than Noah. But Noah is so humble and so cool. I’ve been on sets before where the guy [you’re doing a fight scene with] thinks they know everything. They’ve hardly done two months of training their entire life. But Noah is Noah.
We would egg each other on in terms of the strength and muscle stuff, because obviously we were trying to get as big as possible. That was so funny because it was really like a Ryu and Ken dynamic. But with the other training, I would support him and try to share as much as I know about the art of action for the camera. I would be messaging Noah, going, “Come on, dude, let’s go train with this master, let’s go train with that master,” and Noah, like Ken, would just be like [sighs], “Oh man, I don’t want to! Do we have to? Why are we doing this?” He would come along and do it, even though he didn’t want to. But then he’d get there and charm his way through, because he’d charm his way through anything. He cracked me up.
Street Fighter opens in Philippine cinemas on October 14.
Frequently Asked Questions
Andrew Koji plays Ryu in the 2026 Street Fighter movie. Koji is a British-Japanese actor and martial artist who has also appeared in Bullet Train and Warrior.
Street Fighter opens in Philippine cinemas on October 14, 2026. The film’s official U.S. release date is October 16, 2026.
Set in 1993, the film follows Ryu and Ken Masters as they reunite for the World Warrior Tournament after Chun-Li recruits them. The tournament is tied to a conspiracy that forces the two rivals to confront each other and their pasts.
The cast includes Andrew Koji as Ryu, Noah Centineo as Ken Masters, Callina Liang as Chun-Li, Jason Momoa as Blanka, 50 Cent as Balrog, Roman Reigns as Akuma, David Dastmalchian as M. Bison, Cody Rhodes as Guile, and Vidyut Jammwal as Dhalsim, among others.
Yes, Koji is an actor trained in martial arts with experience in action and stunt work. He has performed stunt work and action roles, including in Fast & Furious 6 and Bullet Train, and drew on his martial-arts background while playing Ryu.
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