Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, BJJ, is one of the martial arts that is gaining more relevance in recent years. This fame has made many Hollywood actors and characters of the show grow an interest in trying this discipline. In this article we are going to show you 3 examples of worldwide famous actors who practice or have practiced BJJ.

Ashton Kutcher

Ashton Kutcher is an American actor, known among others for his work in the series "Those Wonderful 70s" and "Two and a Half Men" or films such as "The Butterfly Effect" or the biography of Steve Jobs, "Jobs".

He is also well known for his love affairs with other famous Hollywood actresses: he was married to Demi Moore from 2005 to 2011 and in 2015 he married Mila Kunis.

Kutcher began practicing contact sports in 2012, when he tried BJJ at Ricardo De La Riva's academy in Rio de Janeiro to improve his fitness. In this photo we can see the actor at the De La Riva academy, wearing an Atama BJJ Kimono, a popular Brazilian brand, which of course you can find in our store.

About two years later, at the beginning of 2014 he received the blue belt and continued with his training while doing a lot of private lessons, all this training helped him obtain the purple belt at the end of that same year, which was given by his teacher and was something that was questioned online by many fans, since going from blue belt to purple belt in a few months is something very difficult and unusual in BJJ.

Ashton has continued to train regularly and in 2019 he got the brown belt from the hands of his coach, Rigan Machado, who has commented that Kutcher's progression is faster because he had a good previous Wrestling base. 

Will he soon get the prized black belt? 

Here you can see Ashton receiving his brown belt from Rigan Machado:

Ed O'Neill

A more mature, but also widely known actor is Ed O'Neill. The protagonist of "Marriage with Children" and "Modern Family" has been practicing martial arts and combat sports for more than 25 years. 

His approach to BJJ came from the hand of Rorion Gracie, co-founder of the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) and son of Hélio Gracie, who was one of the great promoters of BJJ.

The actor began his adventures in soft art when he was 42, in 1987, when a friend convinced him to try a class at the legendary Gracie Academy in Torrance, California.

In that class, Rorion himself tested O'Neill who was a big, strong person by telling him to try to get him out of the knee-to-tummy position and then try to keep Rorion while he stood guard.

Obviously, O'Neill couldn't do anything in either position and was surprised that someone much lighter than him could master him so easily.

After 20 years of training Rorion gave him the black belt, in 2007, thus, demonstrating that you can start training BJJ after the age of 40 and despite your age you can even obtain a black belt if you are constant.

In this video you can see Ed rolling a little with his teacher Rorion Gracie many years ago:

Paul Walker

The actor known primarily for being the protagonist of the blockbuster Fast & Furious film saga discovered BJJ just like many other people, by watching Royce Gracie dominate his opponents without much trouble in the first UFC events back in 1993 and 1994.

In 2004 some friends encouraged him to train at the academy where they trained, Paragon BJJ by Professor Ricardo "Franjinha" Miller in Santa Barbara (California).

According to his teacher in the excellent article Fightland – “We remember Paul Walker” he was a very strong and athletic young man and although he started with at 31 years old and was worried about not having started earlier, his goal was clear and he wanted to become a black belt, something he almost achieved because he reached a brown belt, which very few people get.

He trained in both group classes and private lessons with Franjinha. It was common to see him using BJJ techniques in the fight scenes of the Fast & Furious films.

In November 2013 Paul Walker unfortunately died in a car accident in Santa Clara (California) while returning from a charity event to raise funds for his organization Reach Out Worldwide that he initially created to help the victims of the brutal earthquake in Haiti.

If you are curious to see his level, in this video where he appears training with his teacher, you can see how even being a blue belt he already moved with great ease on the ground.

These are just 3 actors from a list that is much more extensive with names like Wesley Snipes, Chuck Norris Jason Statham, Keanu Reeves, Steven Seagal, Milla Jovovich, Jim Carrey or Halle Berry.