Ever been caught in that classic romance-related problem known as a “love triangle”? What if the two men involved were hotheaded MMA fighters? What if you were one, too? Said predicament is the premise of Claudia Tan’s webnovel Perfect Addiction, which is now a film that’s currently available on demand. Even judging by the promotional clips already released, you can tell there are some heated fight scenes heightened by lovers’ quarrel-type tropes.

The sports romance centers on MMA trainer Sienna (Kiana Madeira) who thinks that she and champion boyfriend Jax (Matthew Noszka of Star fame) are the perfect team. That is, until the day she discovers him cheating on her with her own sister. Bent on revenge, Sienna starts training the one man capable of dethroning Jax: his arch-nemesis Kayden (Ross Butler of Riverdale fame) What begins as payback quickly turns into something much more heated…
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In addition to director Castille Landon and star Kiana Madeira, we recently caught up with the male leads in this MMA-laced love triangle of sorts. Ross Butler and Matthew Noszka dished on what it took to prepare for a fighter character, as well as their past and future projects. Read our exclusive interviews below.

Ross Butler on Playing a ‘Closed Off’ MMA Fighter

MW: Before joining Perfect Addiction, did you have a lot of experience in MMA fighting specifically?

Ross Butler: Yes, I have had a lot of martial arts experience, but not in Brazilian jujitsu, not like the more traditional MMA, but like a cool mix of different styles of martial arts.

MW: Did having that experience play a factor in wanting to join this project?

Ross Butler: There were a bunch of different reasons why, but a big one was that this was like a martial arts movie but not in like a stereotypically Asian way. Like, it wasn’t like a kung fu movie. When you think of MMA, you actually don’t really think of Asian fighters. It’s weird, you think more like Brazilian or American or U.K. So this was like a cool mix of two different worlds that really aren’t associated, even old MMA movies like Never Back Down or Warrior.

MW: There’s a lot going on with your conflicted character, with his dark backstory and all that. Was there a particular aspect of the character or scene that was particularly challenging for you to nail down?

Ross Butler: It was not necessarily a certain scene, but his character trait of being really closed off, because I’m a really outgoing person. I like people, I like meeting people, I like talking to people. But for this guy, he was completely different than any other character I’ve played, including my own life.

Ross Butler: So a lot of the lead-up to going there was, I stopped hanging out with my friends, I became more reclusive, and I stopped being friendly to people for a little bit, which made me feel like s*** at first. But that’s why I wanted to do it is because when I got on set, I didn’t want any subconscious mannerisms to come out, as far as like my own personality. I wanted the person like the subconscious stuff to be more closed off. And that was the hardest thing.

Related: The 10 Best Martial Arts Movies of All Time, Ranked

MW: Having also starred in the Shazam! movies, was there any sort of overlap in the training for those action-type movies and Perfect Addiction?

Ross Butler: No overlap whatsoever, very different fighting styles. I remember in the first Shazam!, we had a few training sessions of how to fight like a superhero. And yeah, it’s different. One of the martial arts styles I do is […] Brazilian breakdance fighting, essentially. And you’re not actually trying to hit the other person, you’re telegraphing your moves. So fighting for Shazam! was very much like that, taking these big swings […] And then Perfect Addiction, it’s a lot more practical. It’s a lot more real. It’s not showing off your moves as much… So yeah, completely different. No overlap whatsoever, other than my fist going towards his.

Ross Butler on DC and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

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MW: Do you hope to star in more DC movies down the line?

Ross Butler: I’ve always been more of a DC guy than a Marvel guy. DC, I think, has more interesting characters. And not to get into like a DC/Marvel debate, but yeah… that’s all I’ll say about that. I think there’s gonna be some characters that are really cool.

MW: Are there other projects that you’re currently working on that you’d like to share about?

Ross Butler: Yeah, we have Loveboat, Taipei that’s coming out, I think this summer on Paramount. So that’s a movie that I acted and produced as well. We shot that in Taiwan […] I shot Shazam!, [Perfect Addiction] and the Taiwan movie back-to-back-to-back.

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MW: And while I have you, what was it like working on Netflix’s To All the Boys movie franchise?

Ross Butler: That was great. So basically, they brought me on to that just because Noah and I were pretty close prior to that. And I would say, 90% of the dialogue you see with me is improvised between me and Lana [Condor]. They just kind of let us on set, like, “Just do your thing. This is what we need to get to, story-wise. So just find your own way.”

Ross Butler: So yeah, that was just such a fun project. I just got to pretty much be myself, like an exaggerated version of myself. And then yeah, so the movie we shot in Taiwan was actually the same production company […] I might be doing another movie with Lana soon. So we’ll see when that comes out.

Matthew Noszka on the MMA Fighter of Perfect Addiction

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MW: What was the training process was like for your MMA role?

Matthew Noszka: There was a lot that went into it, more so physically than mentally. But there was a ton mentally that I wasn’t expecting as well, because going into jujitsu and martial arts in general, not having a background in it, for some people, might be mentally straining, because there’s a lot to pick up. And there is the pressure of learning so much.

Matthew Noszka: But I think for me, I just had fun with it. And I used it as a tool to ultimately develop a skill set that I’m going to have for the rest of my life. And I was like, “This is a great opportunity for me to dive into the world of martial arts, learn as much as I possibly can in preparing for the film. And if I give it my all, whatever comes out on screen is meant to be.” So I think, for me, the mental aspect of it wasn’t so tough. But the physical aspect was. I have a bunch of injuries that I’m working through, due to an accident that I had a few years ago. And that was probably the most difficult, was just the constant training and constant prep work. I was trying to put on a ton of muscle. These guys that train and fight in the UFC, for instance, their training schedules allow them to only do so much, but then they have to cut weight. And their nutrition team, it’s just like, there are so many more facets that go into it.

Related: The Top 10 Very Best Modern Boxing Movies

Matthew Noszka: So for me, I wasn’t making weight. But I wanted to look the most authentic, so when I’m shredding and doing everything, I felt like I was training for a fight. And that’s what I kind of gave to this role was, if I’m going to train for this, I’m going to do it as if I have a fight coming up. And I learned as much as I possibly could, I had tons of great trainers and people that really led me in the right direction. And then as far as the muscle building and the training outside martial arts, I pretty much did all that on my own. And I think that I gave it my all, so hopefully everybody else sees how much I put into it.

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MW: I read that you played basketball back in the day, right?

Matthew Noszka: Yeah, I played a bunch of sports growing up. My grandfather played for the Boston Celtics back in the day. And basketball was definitely a family favorite […] I think for me, it was my ticket out. And that’s really what I wanted to play. It’s what I loved. It was what my family loved. And then when I got into college, I was in my junior season, I ended up getting a slight injury on my ankle, and I was out for a few games.

Matthew Noszka: I had been going back and forth to New York modeling with this modeling agency that randomly scouted me […] And it kind of just willed its way into my life to where I was like, “Alright, maybe I can take a shot at this.” And then modeling went to acting. So I believe everything definitely happens for a reason. But having a sports background, I think, is going to support a lot of my future roles as well, in what I want to do in film.

MW: Your character gets into some pretty heated situations. Is there a particular scene you shot that still stands out for you?

Matthew Noszka: We’re shooting the wedding [fight] scene, and I’m basically just wrecking havoc. I come in, [my character is] not invited, I’m drunk, and basically just stirring up the pot, because you know, I’m unhappy. I don’t want to see [the lead character Sienna] happy, even though I kind of do want to see her happy. So I just come in and try and mess things up. And in one of the scenes, right at the end, after the flight kind of breaks out and Ross and I are like going at it [in character], we see the scene kind of dying out where the fight’s now been broken up. We’ve separated, and I was like talking trash to them, knowing like the camera’s on me […]

Matthew Noszka: I tripped and fell. There was a cake that fell on the ground, and I stepped backwards and stepped on a piece of the table that had busted and slipped and started falling backwards. And there are 50, 60 extras in the room. So, me falling on my butt was just not an option. I just I had in my head, I knew I slipped, and I was like, “I’m going to do everything I can to save this.” And I’m just falling backwards, tripping, falling, and then ultimately, I ended up grabbing a hold of a side table that had a plant on it. And I grabbed hold of it. It kept me up, and then I grabbed the plant, and I just turned around and was like, “I’m taking this with me!” And everyone started laughing and clapping, and it was pretty funny.

Matthew Noszka Talks Getting Famous and the Nick Cassavetes Loop

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MW: Anything else you’re currently working on at the moment?

Matthew Noszka: My first film ever was called NWA, and it was an episodic for BET, where they switch the worlds, and they put the whites in the projects and the Blacks in the authorities […] And I met Nick Cassavetes on that set, and Nick Cassavetes was the only director I really knew of because — I wasn’t really into film growing up, I didn’t really know much about it. I thought it was awesome, but I didn’t fathom it as a career path for me. I was always sports-focused, and that was what’s gonna get me out, it was gonna help me make money to pay for my school.

Matthew Noszka: But then I met Nick Cassavetes on this set when I first started acting, and I remembered him as the director of The Notebook, which was one of my favorite films. I was super into like dramas and rom-coms. And once I started to think of acting, I was like, “I’d love to play Channing Tatum or Ryan Gosling.” And when I met him, I said, “I’m gonna work with this guy one day.” […] And then recently, right after I finished Perfect Addiction, one of the producers from this new movie that’s going to be coming out, it’s called Marked Men, hit me up and was like, “Hey, we’re working on this project.”

Matthew Noska: I ended up auditioning, and I got the role, and we shot that recently in Bulgaria. It’s based off of a book series as well, called The Marksman. But we’re going back to Bulgaria to shoot the second film. So we already wrapped the first one […] and that one, I got to work with Nick Cassavetes. And it was just such a surreal moment to meet him on my first project and then aspire to ultimately work with him in a bigger capacity. And here we are.

From Decal Releasing, Perfect Addiction is now available on demand.