Lexi Alexander

Alexandra Mirai (الكسندرا ميراي; born 23 August 1974), known professionally as Lexi Alexander, is a German-Palestinian television and film director.

She is a former World Karate Association world champion in karate-point fighting, and is best known for directing the action films Green Street and Punisher: War Zone.

Her debut short film Johnny Flynton was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.

Alexander was born in Mannheim, Germany, to a German mother and a Palestinian father.

She grew up in Mannheim.

Alexander's father was born and raised in Ramallah, Palestine.

Alexander studied acting in Los Angeles at Joanne Baron's acting school learning Meisner technique and with acting coach Piero Dusa.

She took extension classes in filmmaking at University of California, Los Angeles.

Alexander began studying martial arts, specifically judo, when she was 8 years old.

At 14, she switched to Shotokan karate.

She has a third-degree black belt in karate.

Alexander excelled at kickboxing, where after two years in the sport, she joined the German National Team.

She won the German point fighting championships four times and the European championships two times.

In 1994, at the age of 19, Alexander became the World Kickboxing Association world champion in karate-point fighting in Atlantic City.

At the age of 19, she retired from professional fighting and moved to the United States.

Alexander had met Chuck Norris at a kickboxing event in the United States and she had previously acted in small roles in German TV.

Norris encouraged her to come to Hollywood to act and study filmmaking.

He was one of her sponsors for immigration.

She also partially trained Marines in hand-to-hand combat one time in 1994.

With the assistance of martial artist Pat Johnson, she landed the part of Kitana in Mortal Kombat: Live Tour, and in 1995 and 1996, spent seven months on tour.

Alexander went on to work steadily as a stunt person doing fighting stunts and motorcycles, falls from high-rise buildings, going on to learn precision driving and race car driving.

The first film Alexander directed was called Johnny Flynton, a short film that was nominated for an Academy Award in 2003.

She said that the film, about a boxer from Alabama who is charged with murder, is a fictional story that was inspired by meeting a boxer in Germany when she was 9 years old, an interaction that she remembered and was the basis of the idea for the film.

The film was self-financed by Alexander and had a budget of US$35,000 and was filmed in 5 days.

In 2005, Alexander directed her first full-length feature film called Green Street, also known as Green Street Hooligans, or Hooligans. The independent film starred Charlie Hunnam as soccer hooligan Pete Dunham, Elijah Wood as Matt Buckner, Claire Forlani as Shannon, Marc Warren as Steve, and Leo Gregory as Bover, and was produced by Gigi Pritzker and Deborah Del Prete.

Green Street Hooligans was inspired by her experience growing up watching her family's favorite German soccer team Waldhof Mannheim, which led to a fascination with the sport and its passionate fans.

Inspired by this, Alexander co-wrote a screenplay with a former soccer hooligan turned writer, Dougie Brimson, and Joshua Shelov based on a story by Alexander and Brimson about the firm of West Ham United.

Released in 2005, Green Street Hooligans was only the second in the history of the South by Southwest festival to win both the Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature and Audience Award for Narrative Feature, after Alex Holdridge's Sexless in 2003.

In 2008, Alexander directed the film Punisher: War Zone starring Ray Stevenson as the Punisher.

She was the first woman to direct a Marvel adaptation and it was her first studio film.

At the time of its release, the film was considered a commercial and critical failure.

The film has since become considered a cult classic.

Comedian Patton Oswalt was an early and vocal defender of the film.

Alexander has been outspoken about her experience with Punisher. The film's budget shrank considerably, and Alexander wanted to work on a studio film so she said she was hired at a low rate.

Then, during marketing, that budget was also low, and, in her opinion, the Christmas release date a mis-step.

She also mentioned that due the film developing a cult following, she's since mainly been optioned scripts with extreme levels of violence, which she passes on because she's naturally "squeamish."

In 2011, Alexander wrote and directed the straight-to-video film Lifted, shot in Alabama, which had themes of Christianity.

The film starred Dash Mihok, Nicki Aycox and Uriah Shelton.

Lifted tells the story of a son's difficulty with his father's deployment in Afghanistan as a Marine, and features musical performances by Shelton and Mihok.

In 2012, Alexander directed an episode for Anthony Zuiker's BlackBoxTV YouTube channel entitled "Execution Style."