One of the toughest things for Jet Tranter to do was lose.
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So when the script read for the 36-year-old to take all the hits in her new film's penultimate battle, she knew it would be a tough pill to swallow.
Four years after competing in her first Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament, the Nagambie martial artist-turned-actress found herself on the silver screen in a leading role.
Scouted from the mat, she landed on the set of the independently-produced Australian alien invasion blockbuster Occupation: Rainfall.
Struggling for motivation in high school, Jet said she always had a deep love for 80s martial arts films.
Inspired, she moved to Melbourne at 18 to study Muay Thai, karate, boxing and jiu-jitsu at the Melbourne Martial Arts Academy.
“I found it really hard in school to study things I wasn’t interested in,” the actress said.
“I didn’t realise what I was really interested in until I became an adult and I was like, ‘hey I really like fighting and I really like fitness, let’s give this a go’, and that sort of became my life.”
Tracked down via Facebook after her first jiu-jitsu tournament, Jet’s first acting role was in Lady Bloodfight in 2016, which she said was a steep learning curve.
“They needed actresses who could do their own stunts because the budget was relatively low,” Jet said, adding she jumped at the opportunity.
“(On my first day) all the technical terms and what they were referring to really caught me off guard.
“I quickly realised this was serious business and there were 100 people on set waiting for me to do my job and I wasn’t prepared.
“I took that as a big lesson and came through in the end.”
Jet found success through her role in Lady Bloodfight and started scoring larger roles, including as one of the Valkyrie sisters in Thor: Ragnarok.
“It’s kind of weird when people start perceiving you in a different light, because I was never really used to a lot of attention,” she said.
She said this change was one factor that helped fuel her ambition to pursue a career in acting.
“I always question, what’s our purpose if we don’t challenge ourselves to go beyond what we’re comfortable with?” she said.
“When we challenge ourselves, we grow, I try to take this into account every time I’m nervous about something.”
For Jet, this meant leaving her success in martial arts behind.
“When I got into acting I realised I couldn’t do both things, I couldn't be a trainer, a martial artist and still work in the film industry,” she said.
It was something of an epiphany for Jet, and she soon realised she’d have to learn to lose.
“On set, when I was meant to be taking hits in the face, I would actually block them,” she said.
“It was really hard because it became a reflex to protect myself, and it was really hard to un-learn that, especially when you're the guy who has to die.
“Most heroes tend to take a beating, even villains take a beating before they get back up, so I had to learn how to take a beating without fighting back for a while.”
Following a new pursuit meant she had to learn to fight all over again – with her on-camera moves a far cry from her past experience.
“When you fight, you put your hands up, you bring your chin down and you protect your face,” she explained.
“But in movies they want to see your face, so everything has to be different, opened up.
“But if you do that when you’re fighting in a martial arts tournament, the other person can see it coming from a mile away.
“Everything is very tight, but in film everything's quite wide and beautiful and dramatic.”
Constantly learning how to improve her acting, Jet said her colleagues, particularly Temuera Morrison, were a huge help.
Jet recalled one intense scene where she had to cry while doing her stunts. It wasn’t until after they’d wrapped filming Temuera suggested she use onions to help her cry.
“Because I harness my emotions genuinely, when he said that I was like ‘oh, why didn’t I learn this earlier?’” she said, laughing.
Her mum Nattaya was almost more excited than Jet when her daughter was cast as Amelia Chambers - resistance leader and one of the good guys - in Occupation: Rainfall.
“(With my previous roles) my mum used to say no, no, no, why are you naked? Why are you killing people? And I’d have to tell her, it’s not real, it’s just pretend, I’m not really like that,” Jet said with laugh.
The film, which picks up two years into an intergalactic invasion of Earth where survivors in Sydney are desperate to fight back, is the highly anticipated follow-up to Luke Sparke’s 2018 film Occupation.
Released in cinemas on January 28, Jet said the film opened a serious conversation about the future and the potential of Australian films.
“COVID-19 was very difficult, I didn’t have any auditions,” she said.
“I’ve really got my fingers crossed for Australia.
“I think it’s a great time for Australia to think about producing ambitious films like Occupation: Rainfall.
“(We’ve shown) you can do it on a small budget, it doesn’t have to be a big Hollywood budget. And you can do it here, we’ve got the crews, we’ve got the talent, we’ve got everything we need.”
Features and Special Publications co-ordinator