Fightland is the new big-budget drama that blurs the line between boxing and organized crime, but while some of the tightly choreographed action uses clever camera angles, you’d be forgiven for thinking that many of the punches landed hard—because they really did. To get a feeling for how the show’s star, Howard Charles, went the distance on his biggest project yet, M&F stepped between the ropes to talk to the actor, his on-screen opponent, and the stunt-coordinator who brought it all to life for the new Starz show, which premieres Friday, July 31.
Signing up to play Maduka “Duke” Kilroy, a former boxing champion who seeks revenge against the criminal outfit that he believes murdered his brother, Charles tells M&F that didn’t need to crash diet to get defined. “Fortunately, I was already in pretty good shape,” says the London-born actor, whose previous credits include Top Boy and Shadow and Bone. “I only had two weeks to prepare before we started shooting, so I always say; you can’t ‘get’ ready when you need to ‘be’ ready.’ So, be ready!”
Still, having entered the filming phase of Fightland with a super-lean physique, word soon came down that Charles would need to put on some additional weight in order to play a believable heavyweight fighter. This meant that with principal photography now already in progress, the actor would be required to add some serious mass ahead of what would later become the show’s first scene, when Duke wins the world title. “I think, when I was cast, I was just about cruiserweight (175 to 200 pounds),” he recalls of the challenge.
Fortunately, by the time Charles stepped through the ropes for that first match, he’d added 15 pounds to go past the heavyweight minimum of 200 pounds. But to become a bona fide, functional fighter, the star understood that he would need a more sensible approach than simply cramming in the calories. “You can put on 7 kilos (15 pounds) in one night, if you really want to,” he says. “But that wouldn’t help you carry out the task at hand, right?”
The actor points out that boxing is not about making the body “beautiful,” but rather “readying it for war.” And there would certainly be some wars ahead.
How Howard Charles Went From Cruiserweight to Heavyweight for ‘Fightland
Charles says that one of the first things that he switched up in his training, to gain the weight, was to lift heavier. “It was more focusing on strength training, to be honest,” shares the actor. “Heavier weight, fewer reps. I was in a deep (calorie) deficit when I was cast, so I had to switch that around, and it took me about two weeks to start putting on weight. My metabolism was obviously firing from before.”
Charles shares that he was seven weeks deep into a cutting phase before signing up to play Duke. Fortunately, the chance to increase his food intake was a process that he found easy to embrace, and hours of learning the punishing art of pugilism would also add a ruggedness to his frame “The biggest change, of course, was boxing,” explains Charles. “I hadn’t really done much boxing since I was a teenager.”
Starz
Howard Charle’s Embraced the Authenticity of ‘Fightland’
Much of Fightland was either rehearsed or shot at Peacock Gym, a space that has hosted former champions like Lennox Lewis, the Klitschko brothers, Chris Eubank, and Floyd Mayweather to name but few. The Gym, which took on the name “Kilroy’s Gym” on the show, is situated in Canning Town, in the east end of London—one of the most deprived areas of the United Kingdom. As if that were not reason enough to make sure that the action felt authentic, the fact that Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson (who partnered with Starz to create the series) is also a huge boxing fan would place an extra level of responsibility on the crew.
To that end, Charles received boxing tuition from England Boxing coach Marcus Flemming, who appears in that opening fight scene as Duke’s championship opponent, ‘H Bomb’. Everyone on the team was determined to respect the sport of boxing, so that it’s fans and fellow fighters wouldn’t feel cheated. “That was the trickiest part,” says Flemming. “When you’re casting boxers, it’s quite easy because they are boxers and it comes naturally. But the challenge is getting the actor to actually move like a boxer.”
Charles worked tirelessly on the “Philly Shell,” an advanced boxing stance used famously by Floyd Mayweather Jr, where the lead arm covers the stomach and the rear hand blocks hooks to the face. “It was quite specific,” reflects Charles, who put his all into looking the part. “It’s not just about putting your hands up.” To paint a believable picture, the opening bout included the down tempo moments associated with heavyweight boxing, such as clinching, along with the powerful punches that these big athletes swing with serious force.
Starz
The Brutal Fight Scenes Where Actors Took Real Punches
In addition to the in-ring work, Fightland also features street fighting and other life-threatening action, but for the show’s stunt coordinator, Crispin Layfield, the core boxing element had to ring true. “From my point of view, it was so important that we had to have all of the boxing done correctly,” he tells M&F. “It had to be authentic.”
Layfield, who has also worked on other major projects like James Bond: Tomorrow Never Dies,Doctor Who, and Band of Brothers, or explains that Marcus Flemming would use his technical knowledge to help build the backbone of the boxing sequences, allowing Layfield to put them all together and tell the story of a gripping on-screen battle. “When Howard turned up to do his training with Marcus, you could tell straight away that he was able to box,” recalls Layfield. “He could move, and he had this incredible memory for learning the fights.”
Of course, camera angles are often used to hide the distance between a fighter’s fist and his opponents face, but there were a number of times on the set of Fightland when the punches landed for real. Apparently, Howard Chales and Marcus Flemming felt that there were occasions where the angles didn’t appear to represent the action fully, so in order to make sure the strikes looked like they were connecting, they threw genuine haymakers at each other for good measure. At one point, both men got so immersed in the bout that they were egging each other on to hit harder, resulting in the kind of intensity that can only come from a genuine fight in the ring.
But despite those brutal moments, Charles praises both Flemming and Layfield for being “central to this show’s success,” and says that as a big boxing fan himself, he is “forever grateful” to the team behind Fightland, and to Curtis Jackson for putting his faith in him. The heavyweight actor also tells M&F that he’s more than open to punching his way through future seasons, concluding, “It’s been an absolute honor to serve the character and the story.”
Fightland is set to premiere on Friday, July 31, 2026, via Starz in the United States and Canada, with an August release slated for the United Kingdom on Sky Atlantic.
To follow Howard Charles on Instagram, click here!
