When I got the script for 'Winter Soldier,' I was so excited to see that my character finally gets to punch somebody! So I took tae kwon do three times a week. I wanted to feel like I could hold my own in a roomful of superheroes.
I did a lot of tae kwon do and branched off into other stuff later on, but tae kwon do is great. It was my equalizer. That was how I was able to survive in the land of the giants. Thank God for that.
In 'Winter Soldier' - in terms of character-based, 'Winter Soldier' was so specifically for us: everything in that movie was designed around that version of Captain America that we wanted to see, that we wanted to explore. Everything in that film, all of the stylistic choices just flow from that.
When I first started training Tae Kwon Do, it was more just for discipline. My brother and I were two knuckleheads and my mom being a single mother wanted us to get more discipline somewhere other than her yelling at us. But I had no visions at all or aspirations of going from Tae Kwon Do into mixed martial arts.
I belong to an improv group, I play cello, I have these phases - fencing, tae kwon do, baseball, ice hockey, boogie boarding in the summer, snowboarding in the winter.
If you can't hold your own, you're gonna get knocked out. You're bleeding all over the place. There are many, many nights that these boys are crawling off the mats. They drop from body shots, their nose is just bleeding like a faucet. On Wednesday nights, they come in and get a beating. It only happens once with these guys. You'll get karate experts or Tae Kwon Do experts and they can't hold a candle.
Most everything I do revolves around tae kwon do. That said, I like to be a typical girl and go shopping. I have three nieces and nephews that I like to hang out with. I'm also finishing my last semester at the University of Houston, where I'm majoring in childhood education.
When I was growing up, there were times I had to compete against boys in tae kwon do, and I'd show them right away that I wasn't someone to mess with.
I wasn't the biggest Captain America fan, but increasingly, I see him as a great character. Winter Soldier really got into what it meant to actually represent America.
Growing up, my dad owned a restaurant in Washington, DC, and food was something I was passionate about. But when I finally got into it, I felt like it was so late in the game; that's why I worked seven days a week at Craft and Mercer Kitchen. I wanted to see how far I could take it.
I do Ashtanga yoga three times a week, and I run a couple of times a week, too. I really like yoga; I enjoy the actual doing of it, so it doesn't feel like the agony of the gym felt like to me.
I took my son to Thailand and really immersed myself in the stuff I wanted to learn and I wanted to improve on, and when I got a taste of that motivation and that inspiration as far as what I wanted to see my body do, I immediately was excited about it.
I'm a black belt in tae kwon do.
My martial arts background is Tae Kwon Do.
I learned Tae Kwon Do and gymnastics and I have a trainer.
Three weeks ago one of my dreams came true. I finally got to see something I always wanted to witness live. I finally saw someone get hit by a car... Nailed!
When I tell people I'm going to the Olympics, they're like: 'What do you do, track and field? Pole vault? Are you a volleyball player?' No one ever guesses tae kwon do.