Andrew Schulz is such a charmer. Mere seconds into our chat, it was already apparent that the American stand-up comedian, actor and podcaster knew exactly how to work his crowd. Before I could thank him for taking the time out to speak with me, he beat me to the pleasantries: “Ayaan! It’s great to see that hair on video, man!” This was a first for me: an interviewee who had actually done his homework on me before the interview. “Anything for The Hindu, man. I saw you interview Christopher Nolan, dude. Thank YOU for taking the time.” I blushed.

What’s funny is that anyone familiar with the New Yorker’s stand-up specials will know that an almost pathological disregard for playing nice are central to his comedic style. It’s probably why he was recruited for Legendary Pictures’ new adaptation of Capcom’s iconic fighting-game franchise Street Fighter — what better character for Andrew to play than Dan Hibiki?

Introduced in Street Fighter Alpha, Dan Hibiki is a gag character addition to a franchise populated with self-serious martial artists; a brash, overconfident wannabe whose actual abilities rarely justify his inflated self-belief. Andrew was unfamiliar with the character when producer Cale Boyter approached him about the role. “I didn’t know anything about Dan. I’m old, so I played the early iterations of the game,” he said. A little research revealed that Dan had been created to poke fun at a rival videogame franchise, making him an especially humiliating choice in a competitive match. “If you choose Dan, you’re basically saying that the guy that you’re playing sucks so bad. It’s like you’re playing FIFA and you choose an MLS team. That’s what Dan’s the equivalent of. (Shout out to the MLS, we’re doing our best).” What appealed to Andrew though, was that Dan remains blissfully unaware of his shortcomings. “He thinks he’s as good as the rest. He thinks he can do a little bit of it all.” His charm, Andrew reckoned, lay in precisely that delusional optimism, which he felt his own comedic instincts could bring to the role.

First released in arcades in 1987, Capcom’s Street Fighter helped define the fighting-game genre, with its sequel spawning a global arcade obsession that would eventually face competition from franchises such as Mortal Kombat and Tekken. Andrew’s own relationship with the game however, began long before any of that mattered. “I played Ryu. We called him ‘Rai’. I think it wasn’t until I was in the movie that I realised it’s been Ryu the whole time.”

Growing up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, he remembers being repeatedly thrashed by Sagat and managing to defeat Vega exactly once, a victory he still seems reluctant to overstate. “There was this thing in the earlier iterations of the game where Vega, the character with the claw, would climb on the fence when he was starting to get low on power. I remember as a kid, you had to attack while doing that flying upper-cut. And I just could never manage to get it.” His eventual victory over Vega offered little respite, since Sagat proceeded to dominate him for hours. By middle school, the obsession had migrated to Marvel vs. Capcom, which he and his friends played at a deli near 70th Street during their 40-minute lunch breaks at Wagner Middle School. Andrew would pilfer coins from his parents’ change saucer, buy an 80-cent buttered bagel and spend whatever remained on the arcade machine. “It was just the best game ever.”

The 2026 adaptation isn’t Street Fighter‘s first trip to the big screen. The 1994 film, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile, has since acquired cult status, although Andrew hasn’t felt compelled to revisit it. “I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t watch it. I just remember it being horrible.” He does, however, have a soft spot for Raul Julia, whose performance as M. Bison was informed by the actor’s terminal cancer diagnosis and his desire to make the film for his children, who loved the game. “He just gave everything to the role. So there’s some cool lore to it.” His reservations about the film’s casting, meanwhile, are considerably less sentimental. “Guile can’t have a foreign accent. This is the American guy. He’s literally wearing an American Army outfit. And he sounds like he’s from Luxembourg.” Andrew reckons the new film has at least got that much right.

Directed by Kitao Sakurai, the new Street Fighter brings together an eclectic cast that includes Andrew Koji as Ryu, Noah Centineo as Ken Masters, Callina Liang as Chun-Li, Vidyut Jammwal as Dhalsim, and many more. I asked Andrew how many of his co-stars could actually throw a punch without requiring a stunt double to preserve their dignity. “Here’s the reality. There’s only probably two guys on set that can actually fight: Andrew Koji and Vidyut Jammwal. Outside of that, it’s people who can kind of pretend fight.” He counts himself and 50 Cent among those with some boxing experience, but distinguishes that from the abilities of Koji and Vidyut, whom he considers genuine martial artists. Vidyut in particular, introduced him to Kalaripayattu, the traditional Indian martial art, prompting Andrew to investigate his filmography. “His stunt work is insane. I saw him jump through a car window. It’s ridiculous.”

Andrew believes the surge in video-game adaptations comes down to the emotional investment audiences already have in the source material. “Video games to men are like books to women,” he said, pointing to Rebecca Yarros’ Fourth Wing as the sort of literary phenomenon whose eventual film adaptation could make “a gazillion dollars”. His argument is that years spent playing a game creates a deep sense of familiarity — he remembers putting a quarter down on an arcade machine to claim the next turn, and how being good at Street Fighter could make you instantly popular at a new kid’s house. “It was a great way to meet friends. It was a great way to create enemies.”

As for selling the film to anyone who hasn’t spent years perfecting a Hadouken, his advice is characteristically unhelpful: “I would say go watch Barbie.” He suspects some viewers will turn up for Noah Centineo and Andrew Koji’s abs, though his own physique will not be competing for their attention. Having asked producer Cale Boyter whether he should get ripped for the role, Andrew was told to “just be funny”, at which point he promptly abandoned the gym and spent much of his two-month stint in Australia at the craft-services table.

Andrew still has fond memories of Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill and Resident Evil, but Street Fighter remains his favourite, without question. “Those are my earliest memories playing it. I barely remember even playing Mario.” And lest anyone mistake his enthusiasm for the franchise for mere nostalgia, he has a very specific brag to back it up: he once beat the director of the actual Street Fighter game while playing as Dan Hibiki. “I played him as Dan, and I beat him. And I videoed it. I’ve got to post that video.” Andrew concedes that his opponent was probably taking it easy, but has no intention of letting that qualification spoil a perfectly good boast. “I’m going to tell everybody that I beat him as Dan. Because I’m that dedicated. I don’t want to beat you as one of the strong characters. I want to beat you as the weakest.” One suspects Dan would approve.

Andrew is equally enthusiastic about finally bringing his stand-up to India. “India’s been very supportive of me in terms of stand-up and sharing my clips. It has been incredibly instrumental in building my career.” He says a tour is “100% going to happen” on his next run, before issuing one final instruction to me: “I better see you out there at the show. And I want that hair intact. Don’t you get a buzz cut before I come out there. I need to see it in person.” Consider my locks officially under contract.

Street Fighter releases in Indian theatres on October 16