The Cast Of Deadpool Before All The Fame

Before she started kicking butt on the big screen, Carano was literally just kicking butt. The actress got her start as an elite Muay Thai martial artist, then made the move into straight-up MMA fighting, racking up a 12-1-1 record in kickboxing, a 7-1 record in MMA fights, and bouts in Shotwime's EliteXC and Strikeforce: Triple Threat. She also participated in the first-ever sanctioned female MMA bout in Nevada, fighting Leiticia Pestova.

As for her acting career, Carano broke into Hollywood thanks to (you guessed it) her Muay Thai experience, nabbing a role in the 2006 film Ring Girls, about five American women who fight the best Muay Thai fighters in the world. From there, she signed up for a stint on NBC's American Gladiators as the gladiator "Crush." Her breakout film role came in Steven Soderbergh's critical 2009 hit Haywire, which opened up doors to allow Carano to star in 2013's Fast and Furious 6 and 2014's In the Blood.

When Deadpool needed someone to bring the badass Angel Dust to life, Carano was an obvious choice. Though it at least gave her the chance to play around in the superhero genre, fans were really pulling for her to land the role of Wonder Woman in Warner Bros.'s DC Expanded Universe (seriously just Google "Gina Carano Wonder Woman" and look at the pics). As we all know, that one went to Gal Gadot (who Carano co-starred with in Fast and Furious, so it all comes full circle).