American Warrior is a film by director and co-writer Gustavo Martin that stars Vishy Ayyar and Danny Trejo. The underdog story is releasing this weekend, and it’s a story about perseverance and redemption.

Ayyar portrays Jai, a former MMA fighter who is trying to build his life back up. He works as a janitor at a gym, living a low-profile life. That is, until he stops a thief with a submission hold. A viral video came out of that incident, enticing him to get back into the world of MMA and enlisting the aid of Trejo, who plays his coach.

Trejo is known for playing the macho guys, especially Machete. In American Warrior, he is still tough as nails, but he takes a backseat to help elevate Ayyar’s Jai.

“I didn’t have to kill nobody and nobody got killed,” Trejo tells Nerd Reactor. “And nobody killed me. You know? I’ve trained people, so it was kind of just old hat, but I loved doing it. I love playing that role. I’ve only done it one other time. That was my son’s film, and I played a dad. This one, the trainer is somewhat of a father image.”

Jai has to start from square one after being released from jail, and Trejo relates to the story.

“The way he portrayed somebody getting out of the penitentiary was realistic,” Trejo said of Ayyar’s character. “I thought he’d done time. I didn’t know. But so he did that really well because when you first get out of the pen, you’re kind of pulled back. You’re not the life of the party. And you’re kind of like surveying everything and seeing what’s going on. Because when you go to prison and you get out five years later, everything’s changed. But he did it really, really well. Just kind of stood by himself and stuff.”

Ayyar portrays Jai as a quiet individual who wants to stay away from the limelight. However, the people he cares about help to push him back into the MMA world.

“Life is a bunch of challenges and how you respond to those challenges,” Ayyar explained. “It sort of defines who you are and makes it meaningful. We are all connected and everybody’s going through their own challenges. And this movie, in its own humble way, gives hope.”

Veronica Falcon portrays the gym owner, and when she discovers Jai’s viral video, she wants him to train at the gym.

“I guess for me, it would be the fact that you fight for a dream,” Falcon said. “I’m an immigrant actor here in the United States. I’ve been an actor for four decades. You have to be there, and you have to keep fighting. You have to keep standing for what you believe in. You have to keep working. It never ends. So yeah, I connected with that.”

Taylor Treadwell portays Jai’s love interest, Melissa, and she helps motivate him to keep on fighting.

“We had dialogue that we were obviously set to speak, but we did have the freedom to improv a bit here and there,” Treadwell said. “Working with Gustavo on an independent film where you’re allowed that collaborative process, I think makes the characters a lot more relatable because it just feels so real.”