American Fighter Premiering on May 21st and on Blu-ray & DVD May 25th!
Lionsgate Official “American Fighter” set to hit select THEATERS and anywhere you RENT movies on May 21st. Blu-ray & DVD May 25th.
Thank you George Kosturos for sitting down with me and chatting about his upcoming movie American Fighter, arrives Friday and on Blu-Ray DVD tomorrow Tuesday the 25th!
American Fighter stars Tommy Flanagan (Sons of Anarchy), Bryan Craig (General Hospital), Allison Paige (The Flash), and Sean Patrick Flanery (The Boondock Saints).
George Kosturos is reprising his role as Ali Jahani. It is the sequel of American Wrestler: The Wizard, and this forthcoming film was also directed by Piccinino. “It was cool and interesting to reprise this role. It was a bit of a transformation from the first movie. It was a lot of fun to bring this character back.”
Shaun Paul Piccinino is super fun to work with. He was great,” Kosturos said about his experience working on American Fighter.
I wanted to know George’s regimen for American Fighter:
To get down all the weight for the callback, I did something totally unhealthy and highly unrecommended, but it worked. I used the Matt Damon weight loss plan he used for Courage Under Fire: Went running for, five miles a day and practiced wrestling moves. It was totally effective, but I wouldn’t want anyone to do it.
As we shot the movie I was training and I gained back the muscle. There were some extreme wrestling moves to learn, but I’ve done some gymnastics and Jiu-Jitsu in high school, so it all worked out.
We also did a lot of wrestling practice drills—wrist drills, takedown drills. Once I started the movie, I had to be really skinny, but then we only had a month to shoot and I had to get a lot bigger through the story of the movie.
There was a playground near our hotel, so every day we’d go and do all-bodyweight workouts—pullups, pushups, dips. We called it the Playground Workout. We did that every single morning, and then every single night after shooting.
SPOILER ALET: By the time my character is championship wrestler, I looked the part.
Just in case you didn’t know, George Kosturos is known for American Wrestler: The Wizard, Born a Champion, and A California Christmas. He’s appeared in Christmas with the Karountzoses, Caged No More, Running Wild, and Pray for Rain.
Make sure to watch AMERICAN FIGHTER. Available in Select Theaters and Everywhere You Rent Movies on May 21st and on Blu-ray and DVD May 25!
American Fighter premiering on Friday, May 21, 2021!
Desperate for cash to save his deathly ill mother, college wrestler Ali (George Kosturos) enters the hidden world of underground fighting. Ali shows promise but, lacking skills, he gets beaten bloody. Duke (Sean Patrick Flanery), a troubled handler, takes pity on the boy and trains him to be a fierce competitor—but is it enough to make Ali a winner? American Fighter is directed by American stuntman & filmmaker Shaun Paul Piccinino, a stunt coordinator and actor and also the director of the films The Bloodletting, The Lackey, Roped, Lady Driver, Wheels of Fortune, and A California Christmas previously. The screenplay is written by Carl Morris and Shaun Paul Piccinino. It's produced by Ali Afshar, Christina Moore, and Anna Zielinski. This first premiered at the 2019 Fantasia Film Festival, and it already opened in the UK last year. Lionsgate will release Piccinino's American Fighter direct-to-VOD in the US starting May 21st.
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