Bullet Train and HBO Warrior star Andrew Koji nearly quit acting. Now the Japanese-British martial artist is leaving his mark

Frustrated by the lack of roles for Asians in Hollywood, Koji nearly gave up acting before landing the lead role in HBO’s Bruce Lee-inspired series Warrior

The actor has since appeared with Brad Pitt in Bullet Train, and now hopes the third season can make Warrior ‘an Asian show that finishes on its own terms’

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Andrew Koji in a still from movie Bullet Train (2022). The actor almost gave up acting before landing the lead role in HBO’s Warrior – the original concept of which came from Bruce Lee. Photo: TNS

Published: 4:15am, 27 Aug 2022Updated: 9:00am, 27 Aug 2022

Life has been a whirlwind since Warrior, the groundbreaking Asian-led HBO action drama, catapulted Andrew Koji from struggling actor to series lead in 2019, but the clear-eyed and candid 34-year-old is trying to remain grounded in the midst of it all.

Landing swiftly on Hollywood’s radar, he brought zest to the role of Storm Shadow in Paramount Pictures’ 2021 actioner Snake Eyes: GI Joe Origins before scoring a role opposite Brad Pitt, Hiroyuki Sanada and Joey King in the Sony action-comedy Bullet Train, in which international assassins collide aboard the famed Shinkansen train in a neon-lit, heightened Japan.

As Kimura, the Tokyo criminal whose desperation to avenge his son sets the story’s events in motion, he lends gravitas to its otherwise cartoonish violence.

“For me he’s a guy who is on the verge of losing it,” says Koji, who likens Kimura to Nicolas Cage’s despondent protagonist in Leaving Las Vegas. “He’s an alcoholic and he’s got nothing left.”

Born and raised in Surrey, England, to a Japanese father and English mother, Koji fell in love with film at an early age, and found both catharsis and calling in acting – “the first thing that felt, in a way, effortless”, he says.