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- Genre creatives in film, TV and video gaming turn to boxing as an outlet for anxiety while Hollywood struggles to bounce back.
- The group is “not an aggro-bro” club, but rather a mix of men and women into their 50s.
- “Yoga was keeping me sane, but I just needed to start punching something,” the club’s founder says.
Bam! Thwack! Splat! OOF!
The groans emerging from horror movie writer-director-producer Adam Egypt Mortimer’s patio are not part of some makeshift sound effects recording session. They are very real noises made by a dedicated group of horror, sci-fi and gaming filmmakers and performers who gather to throw punches at each other in sweaty, twice-a-week boxing sessions.
“I’m sorry for making you stronger,” Mortimer growls good-naturedly on a recent Sunday morning, as he leads grimacing participants in crushing 100-rep sets of sit-ups, planks and squats. “Yes,” he adds, empathetically, “I feel like I’m going to puke too.”
Formed in 2021 by Mortimer after COVID-19 vaccinations began, the unnamed club initially served as an antidote to pandemic cabin fever. Now, in the enduring post-strike film and television slowdown, the boxing sessions continue to provide physical and mental health benefits. And before and after these grueling workouts there are also opportunities to socialize, philosophize and network with like-minded Comic-Con and genre film festival geeks who are making their bones in a corner of the market that, in recent years, has been delivering monster profits and earning industry nominations and awards, “The Substance” being a recent example.
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“This is not an aggro-bro fight club,” Mortimer says of his fighters, a mix of men and women in their 30s to 50s. “What I love about this group is that so many of the people are writers and directors, cerebral people locked in their heads. When you’re boxing, you have to stay in your body — at the very minimum you have to be able to tell the difference between your left and right.”
Indeed, one of the club stalwarts, musician London May, found the punching sequences and footwork so befuddling that he painted an “L” on his left boxing glove and shoe.
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“The first time I came, I was late, and I heard all this noise coming from the backyard. It sounded like a gang fight,” says May, who co-wrote, produced and starred in “Night of the Bastard,” a supernatural siege thriller that screened at horror fests before streaming on Shudder. “I got scared and went home. But I came back the next week and since then, I’ve dislocated a shoulder, gone to urgent care and had headaches that lasted for weeks. But it’s all about showing up, and at the end of the day, you walk a little taller.”
Mortimer’s part-time pugilists also admit to an undeniable adrenaline rush. “All you can do after you’ve been punched in the face and you’re tired and slightly humiliated, is say I have to do that again,” says actor Jonathan Cahill, who has voiced the character Kabal in “Mortal Kombat” video games. “It’s good to be a little masochistic; to create art, you have to be.”
Jarrett Lee Conaway, director of the 2010-2012 zombie comedy web series “Bite Me” and NBC’s “Grand Crew,” says it’s healthy to experience fear in a controlled setting. “That’s why people box and watch scary movies.”
He puts the mutual challenges of boxing and filmmaking in terms a hardcore Trekkie will recognize.
“It’s like the Kobayashi Maru in ‘Star Trek,’ the unwinnable test in the Starfleet Academy training that asks, how do you persevere in the face of insurmountable obstacles?” he says. “How do you face failure?”
Boxing with Mortimer and his crew has helped Conaway to drop about 20 pounds and increased his physical and mental stamina.
“The industry can be emotionally exhausting and can really get in your head,” he observes. “There are days when the only thing I can get done is coming to boxing, where I can let it all go.”
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Mortimer, who co-wrote and directed the 2019 psychological horror film “Daniel Isn’t Real” starring pre-”White Lotus”-famous Patrick Schwarzenegger, found his way into horror filmmaking and the boxing ring organically.
As a child in Boston, he was left nauseated and sleepless by watching films as various as “Watership Down,” “American Werewolf in London” and Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” “All of these led me to believe that movies should be traumatizing,” he recalls.
After earning a degree in English literature and philosophy from Columbia University, Mortimer gravitated to playing and filming experimental music before moving to Los Angeles in 2007. He directed music videos for Emmy Rossum and System of a Down vocalist Serj Tankian, created horror shorts for Fox Atomic, and made his feature debut with “Some Kind of Hate,” a teen bullying horror story.
“I was just not prepared for the stress and nightmares, the amount of time and false promises in getting a movie made,” Mortimer remembers of the four years it took before the $200,000 film was released in 2015. “Yoga was keeping me sane, but I just needed to start punching something.”
Mortimer found boxing so transformative that he eventually trained at the Broadway Gym in central L.A., and then participated in the genre festival Fantastic Fest’s debate event, which took place in a boxing ring and ended with a sparring match.
“What boxing woke up in me is being a teacher and being helpful to people,” says the director, who initiated Destroy All Boundaries, a free program to mentor fledgling female directors, and has taught a summer film class at USC. His boxing club has also facilitated collaborations between members: Director Alison-Eve Hammersley cast Cahill in her upcoming feature “Erie”; Cahill is also co-starring with fellow boxer, actor-producer Veronica Warner in “The Box,” set for a 2025 release.
“Starting your day with a blast of violence-fueled endorphins certainly takes the edge off another round of trying to get something done in this industry,” Warner says. “Our confidence, friendship and muscle mass have all increased while we’re making new acquaintances in the entertainment industry in a somehow less-threatening environment than, say, a networking mixer.”
For Deanna Rooney, there is no community as supportive as genre creatives, particularly her boxing buddies.
“I’ve embraced the chaos that is this industry,” says Rooney, who in her first Hollywood job served as an assistant on Roger Corman Jr.’s “Cheerleader Massacre 2” and has since written for the “Mystery Science Theatre 3000” 20th anniversary tour, in which she played Dr. Donna St. Vibes. “When we’re boxing, filmmakers help each other problem-solve. You can ask off-the-cuff questions that might be awkward anywhere else, and you get to hear about people’s wins.”
The social aspect also appeals to writer-director J.T. Petty, who has worked on the “Outlast” video game franchise and executive-produced the 2024 Amazon series “Secret Level.”
“It’s so nice to have a meet-up that is not based around drinking. We’re working with a lot of the same people, so it’s a great opportunity to gossip,” he says with a grin, adding that members of the boxing group tend to let their guards down in their conversations. “In L.A., everybody wants pageantry and you’re always pretending everything is going great. Once you’re punching people and getting punched for an hour, you become super comfortable saying anything to anybody.”
Petty often brings his 15-year-old daughter Clementine to box with the group. “As a dad,” he explains, “I do want my daughter to be able to punch people if necessary.”
She chimes in: “I also want to be able to punch people.”
Ahbra Perry, a force in genre film programming, sales and distribution, says that her involvement with the boxing group has burnished her reputation.
“To be a woman in film, you have to be badass,” she says. “I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve had where, as soon as I start talking about boxing, I am shown a little more respect because,” she says, smiling wickedly, “I might punch you in the face.”
Mortimer, who recently co-wrote “Invader,” a self-financed illustrated sci-fi novel, and is currently in production on his next feature, a psychedelic romantic horror movie called “Pathetic Fallacy,” doesn’t necessarily feel combative with the industry. If anything, boxing has made him more determined and collaborative.
“I’ve always by necessity created things myself and tried to push them through, rather than pick and choose things that come my way. I often wake up overwhelmed by the challenges facing me,” he says. “But it’s rare to walk out of a boxing session still feeling that way. And relentlessly doing it two times a week for years now is astonishingly inspiring. The reason I’m in such good shape is because these people keep showing up at my house.”
Mortimer is the partner of Times film critic Amy Nicholson. This story was commissioned before she became an employee.
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