Kali Reis

Episode notes

(Photo: Michele K. Short/HBO)

Kali Reis grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. She’s Cape Verdean on her father’s side and Indigenous on her mother’s. She’s a member of the Seaconke Wampanoag tribe.

Reis is one of the greatest boxers in the world. She currently has a record of 19-7-1 and has two championships in two weight classes. She’s been fighting since she was a teenager, and went pro in her twenties. She wasn’t a big-money fighter, and made rent by working at group homes and as a bouncer at clubs.

It’s been a couple years since her last fight. That’s because she’s been focusing on acting. She first starred in Catch the Fair One. A film which she also helped write and produce. It also earned her a nomination for an Independent Spirit Award.

Her most recent role is alongside Jodie Foster in HBO’s True Detective: Night Country. It’s the next installment in the True Detective anthology series. Night Country is set in the fictional mining town of Ennis, Alaska. The series follows two officers trying to solve the mystery behind a group of research scientists who have turned up dead in the snow, with no explanation for why they vanished.

Kali Reis joins the show to talk about the new season of True Detective. She also gets into what it’s been making the pivot into acting after years of being a professional boxer. She talks with us about the significance of her ring entrance before boxing matches.