Mortal Kombat Star Jessica McNamee Reveals How YouTube Helped Her Sonya Blade Role

Considering that Mortal Kombat has been around for decades with multiple games, comics, and other ways to explore the lore, star Jessica McNamee had a lot of resources to look into after landing a part in the new film. The Australian actress takes on the part of Sonya Blade for the upcoming video game adaptation and speaking in a new interview with Collider, McNamee was asked what the first thing she did when she booked the role was, and it was simple: watch people play as Sonya on YouTube. Watching these videos helped her get a feel for the character and bring that movement style into her work.

“I actually just Googled Sonya Blade” McNamee said. “I did all this reading, I went into the fandom. I mean, it is endless. And then I found it really helpful for me to watch YouTubes of people playing the game, and I got a real eye for what was going on and I learned more about the world.” McNamee used that information and brought it to her performance, which naturally includes major, nasty fight sequences, another facet of the production that she opened up about and working with director Simon McQuoid.

“We were also all fighting to give out the best performances possible and that meant, at times, fighting for – not against each other, but for ourselves,” she added. “Fighting to find our voices, and he just managed it with such grace. I never saw the guy ever lose his temper. It was amazing. He just was always so cool, calm and collected.”

McNamee is just one piece of the larger Mortal Kombat puzzle that will appear in the film, with countless other fan-favorite characters from the series also appearing. She’ll star alongside Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Mehcad Brooks as Jax, Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion, Josh Lawson as Kano, Tadanobu Asano as Raiden, Joe Taslim as Sub-Zero, Chin Han as Shang Tsung, Sisi Stringer as Mileena, and Lewis Tan as new character Cole Young.

Though there are just a few days to go before the film arrives online, Warner Bros. debuted the first seven minutes of the film online earlier today and they’re frankly, brutal. In the opening, which you can watch above, Hanzo Hasashi (Scorpion) is helping his family centuries in the past. And then the Lin Kuei and Sub-Zero show up. After the Lin Kuei cause havoc on Scorpion’s home before being defeated, Sub-Zero and Scorpion fight. The newly released scene stops right as that fight is about to kick into serious gear.

The Mortal Kombat reboot is scheduled to release on Friday, April 23rd on both HBO Max and in theaters. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the film right here.