Callina Liang Says She Felt ‘A Lot of Pressure’ After Seeing How Reddit Reacted to Her Being Cast as Chun-Li

“I did feel a lot of pressure. I was like, ‘Right, I gotta get my s**t together.’ My motto the whole time was just, ‘No regrets. Give it your all. It doesn’t matter how big you can physically get.’ You know, I only had two months. I had to be realistic with myself. I had to be a functioning human being who could act on screen at the end of the day. If I went full-throttle with building my body a certain way, I probably wouldn’t be able to function normally.

“I was just like, ‘Have zero regrets, try your best and some, and whatever result you end up with, you can say, at least I gave it my all.’ That’s what I did, and I think I’m happy.”

Photos taken from set prove that Liang’s efforts paid off. In fact, the actress revealed that she ate a dozen eggs every single day, as well as a meal every two hours, in order to meet her calorie goals and grow her muscles — to the point where she almost threw up. It worked, though, as she was able to grow her thighs 6.5 centimeters each. Even her stunt double couldn’t keep up, who had to wear butt pads in order to realistically sell the idea that she and Liang were the same person in the film.

“Chun-Li is all kicks. So we did a bunch of Taekwondo training, Muay Thai, and Wushu (Kung Fu). I did two hours of that a day and strengthened my legs a lot and changed my diet drastically. When I was bulking, I ate 12 eggs a day. Every two hours I had to have a meal, and I was on the verge of throwing up. But it worked. By the end of the shoot, my thighs had grown six-and-a-half centimeters each,” she said in an August interview with Empire Magazine.

You can catch Liang’s martial arts skills firsthand in the Street Fighter movie, which releases in theaters this Friday, October 16.

Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.