Gina Joy Carano (born April 16, 1982) is an American actress, television personality, fitness model, and former mixed martial artist.
Carano began her training with straight Muay Thai to competitive MMA, where she competed in Strikeforce and EliteXC. She was featured in ESPN The Magazine as well as Maxim. Her popularity led to her being called the “face of women’s MMA” (although Carano herself rejected the title) and was ranked 5th on a list of the “Top 10 Influential Women” of 2008. In August 2009, Carano fought Cris Cyborg in Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg, the first time two women headlined a major MMA event; Cyborg won. Carano compiled a competitive record of 12–1–1 in Muay Thai and a 7–1 in women’s MMA.
Outside the ring, Carano performed as Crush in the revamped 2008 television series American Gladiators. Carano has pursued a career in acting since she retired from competition. Her film debut was in Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 action film Haywire, and she has appeared in Fast & Furious 6 (2013) and Deadpool (2016). In February 2012, Carano was cast in In the Blood, an action thriller directed by John Stockwell. The film is set in motion when a husband disappears while vacationing in the Caribbean with his wife, played by Carano. The grieving wife passionately and recklessly pursues the men whom she believes kidnapped and killed him. Stockwell stated, “This role will showcase not only Gina’s fighting skills, but also her acting abilities as her character struggles to in her violent past.” In September 2012, Carano signed on as the lead in an all-female ensemble action film described as the female version of The Expendables. Producer Adi Shankar said, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to make a movie that is supposed to be the female version of The Expendables without Gina Carano in it. It would be like making Twix without caramel or Jamba Juice without jamba.” Carano co-starred in Fast & Furious 6 (2013) as a member of Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) Special Agent Luke Hobbs’ (Dwayne Johnson) team. While the film received mixed reviews, movie critics were united in their praise of Carano’s performance. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, “Gina Carano is BIG fun to watch. is still a bit stilted with her line readings, but her two fight scenes with Michelle Rodriguez are just epic.” Matt Goldberg of Collider.com wrote that the scene would “create a lot of new Gina Carano fans.” In July 2013, she and comic book creator Rob Liefeld announced they were working on a big-screen adaptation of Liefied’s Avengelyne in which Carano would star as a fallen angel, who is sent to Earth with a mission to find and protect ‘the one’, a person who holds the key to saving mankind from demons and other monsters. Carano appeared in the 2013–2014 Fox series Almost Human episode “Unbound”, where she played the part of an XRN combat android named Danica. She co-starred in the 2015 film Extraction, and she played Angel Dust in the 2016 film Deadpool.