The signs that Kali Reis was a hustler were there when she was just four years old.
“I wanted to make some money so I was getting dirty rocks, stopping cars and selling them,” Reis told BBC Sport.
“My mum said ‘we’re going to take these rocks, clean them and you can paint them’, so I ended up selling rocks to her co-workers as paper weights in the early ’90s.”
That work ethic has continued into adulthood and set Reis on the path to conquering the world of boxing – and just three years after first earning her first acting credit, resulted in her being nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe.
Heavily tattooed and with multiple face piercings, Reis, who spent her formative years in Providence, Rhode Island, presents as a confident, assured, high-achiever, but internally has always wrestled with the idea of her identity.
“I was so confused as a kid,” Reis said.
“Being a kid in the inner-city of Cape Verdean and mixed descent, of being native American Wampanoag, but not growing up around native kids and people thinking I was not really black, but not white, but not this or that, it was just one of those things where I didn’t know where I fitted in.”
Sport, in particular boxing, provided a much-needed lifeline for Reis.
Aged 14, Reis took her first steps into learning the art of pugilism.
“Battling with all of those things in childhood meant I needed outlets, and I got that from basketball, baseball, painting – my grandmother taught me how to paint – but boxing, I love boxing,” Reis said.
“I was very expressive. It was weird trying to find my footing. In hindsight the times I dwelled on not fitting in a lane is kind of my superpower now.”
‘Everyone was equal in that boxing gym’
Reis found a home at Peter Manfredo Sr’s gym in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, throwing herself wholeheartedly into boxing.
It was the first time she had truly felt accepted.
“It was a place where I would go and wouldn’t think about what happened to me as a kid. Why did that kid do that to me? Why did my dad leave? I was just thinking about there’s three minutes on that clock and I need to get there,” Reis said.
“There is just something about the boxing community that lets people in from all kinds of backgrounds, races and social status. In that boxing gym everyone is equal.”
Reis, now 38, turned professional in 2008 and would go on to become a two-weight world champion, winning titles at middleweight and light-welterweight, but her path to the top was littered with obstacles.
Doctors urged Reis not to box again in 2012 when she suffered a torn meniscus and ligament damage after being knocked off her motorbike by a car, and just months later when working as a bouncer Reis alleged she was assaulted by a police officer.
“He hit me, pepper-sprayed me at point-blank and then got me to the ground,” Reis said.
“Bear in mind he was 6ft 3in, 300lb. I had my knee brace on and he put his knee in my back, put the cuffs on, pepper-sprayed me again. He picked me up and called me all kinds of derogatory names.
“I had just wanted to go back to work and now I really can’t box.”
Reis launched a federal lawsuit against the city of Providence in 2015 over the matter and reached a settlement of $48,000 (£37,595) in 2017.
‘I’m always going to be a work in progress’
The prospect of leaving boxing behind led Reis to hit the self-destruct button.
She used alcohol and pain medication as a crutch in an attempt to escape her mental and physical struggles.
“I literally woke up in the firepit in my backyard with an empty bottle of Jack [Daniel’s] in my hand,” Reis said.
“I crawled out of that thing and it was something where I thought this can’t be my life, this is not what I’m supposed to be doing. There was something – higher self, ancestors, whatever you want to attest it to – that told me I needed to get up and start walking.”
A phone call from friend and former world champion Shelly Vincent would prove the catalyst – Reis accepted an invitation to move to New York to train and get her career back on track.
“It took someone to see something in me to really believe it. I’m in such a great place now to have the tools that if I feel like I’m in the firepit again, I can get out,” Reis said.
“If I have air in my lungs I owe it to myself and my family to just keep going. My best that day is my best. I’m always going to be a work in progress.”
‘I like to be the dumbest person in the room’
Reis has not fought since beating Jessica Camara to add the WBO light-welterweight title to her WBA belt in November 2021.
She was set to meet Britain’s Chantelle Cameron, who was the WBC and Ring magazine champion, in an undisputed contest – a fight she still wants to happen – but health issues forced Reis to take time away.
Not one to let opportunities pass her by, Reis found a new outlet.
“In the process of stepping aside this acting thing came about. I literally went to the channels and got the [acting] job,” Reis said.
“It wasn’t like I had a secret plan that I wasn’t going to fight and I’m going to get people hyped when I’m going to acting.
“I had nothing lined up. I was at home doing self-auditions for a year before anything came to fruition. It was divine timing.”
Reis grew up in an artistic family. Her father played the keyboard and toured with Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, her mother was a singer and ballet dancer, while her grandmother was a member of a drama club called citamard – dramatic spelt backwards.
“My mum used to have me in church plays. Music, dance, arts and expression was always part of my everyday life in the house,” Reis said.
Reis made her acting debut in a film called Catch the Fair One before picking up another role in Asphalt City, which starred Sean Penn.
Playing Evangeline Navarro – a no-nonsense police officer – alongside Jodie Foster in hit TV series True Detective: Night Country sent Reis into the mainstream.
Just three years after dipping her toe into the world of acting, Reis is thriving.
Reis made history, along with Lily Gladstone, by becoming the first native American women to be nominated for an Emmy this year, while she has also been nominated for a Golden Globe.
“I’ve been blessed to be around people who are masters of their craft and have the intention of being good at their job and be kind human beings,” said Reis.
“Being in their presence and in their energy, I’ve learned so much. I like to be the dumbest person in the room because now I’m surrounded by people who are really smart and all I get to do is listen, watch, observe and learn.”
