(From left) actor Ryan Destiny and director Rachel Morrison on the set of ‘The Fire Inside.’
Sabrina Lantos
The life and legacy of professional boxer and mixed martial artist Claressa Shields is the driving force behind ‘The Fire Inside,’ a new feature from director Rachel Morrison.
Starring Ryan Destiny as Claressa and Brian Tyree Henry as her coach, the film follows Shields from Flint, Michigan through her training to become the first woman in this country’s history to win an Olympic gold medal in the sport.
“Somebody reached out to me two months before the second Olympics,” Shields explains at a global press conference for the film. The boxer had some questions about the plot, and more specifically, what the story was going to cover. “I was just asking them, so where are you guys gonna start in my life? Where are you guys going to finish in the movie about my life? Because I had [a] documentary.”
Shield’s documentary ‘T-Rex’ followed the Michigan native for about four years, from the ages of 16 to 20. The hour-and-a-half look into her life showed her path to the Olympics, but she wanted a fuller picture for the feature.
“People left the documentary ‘T-Rex’ thinking that I won a gold medal and that was it…[I had] no endorsements, no sponsorships, living in poverty. And I just was like, well, now with the movie that’s gonna be worldwide, I need it to where people understand. Don’t leave out any of the bad stuff. Put it all in there,” Shields continues.
“But just know, this isn’t a sad story. This is a very resilient story. I feel like this is a very fateful and a hopeful story. I don’t want nobody feeling sorry for me because I don’t feel sorry for myself. But I want them to know, I went through this, I went through that. Almost quit here. Almost gave up there. But look at where I am now. And being 29 years old.”
Rachel Morrison signed on to direct ‘The Fire Inside’ once she found out about Shields—and she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t heard it before.
“Claressa is such a badass force and an incredible athlete. And I follow sports, so for me to not know it, it felt like there was something wrong in the universe,” Morrison explains.
“I’d been reading for a long time and looking for something that felt, you know, meaningful and additive in the universe and that I could be additive to. There were things that I saw from my experiences being a female DP that I could put into it as well. But really it’s just Claressa’s story deserved to be out there.”
Along with Shields’ story, actor Bryan Tyree Henry is tackling another figure from the boxing world—Coach Jason Crutchfield.
“I think every actor with their weight in salt looks for that moment where we get to actually play somebody that’s real, that’s actually living and breathing. But so rarely do you get a chance to do it where they’re still making history, where they’re still doing what they do,” Tyree Henry explains.
“I wanted to explore what that relationship was like with Jason because, you know, he is a character and a man that we so rarely see projected in cinema. This mentor, this man that is still in Flint doing this for the kids, not for fame, not for fortune, but because it’s what he wants to do. I know that I needed to see role models like that, especially portrayed in cinema. I needed to feel like I was giving back to my mentors that did that for me.”
Ryan Destiny signed on with the project for similar reasons. Recently, the actress was also nominated for Best Lead Performance at the 2025 Indie ‘Spirit Awards’ for the feature.
“It was very important for me to show the dynamics of who Claressa is. You know, she is so superhuman and I think to a lot of people, they see the strong parts, the parts that are extremely confident and, you know, just ready to fight, ready to go,” Destiny finishes.
“But she is a human, and so there’s other parts of her. She is vulnerable. She is very kind, she is very empathetic. She cares for her family, you know, for the people around her. And I just loved being able to highlight those moments within the film itself and just really [show] the heart of who she is.”
‘The Fire Inside‘ hits theaters Christmas Day.
