EVERYONE has their fight to win, and no one wants to back down. Star of Blood Diamond Djimon Hounsou knows this scenario all too well.

The African-born actor has shown his confidence holding court opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond and Russell Crowe in Gladiator.

But things haven't always been so bright for this former street-dweller.

Moving from Benin, Africa, to Paris as a teenager and unable to find work, Hounsou ended up a vagrant, sleeping under bridges, washing in fountains, begging for money and surviving on bin scraps for dinner.

What a difference 20 years can make.

After French fashion designer Thierry Mugler discovered and used Hounsou as a model, he transferred to acting, and now has two Oscar nominations under his belt.

In Hollywood, or ‘‘La La Land'' as Hounsou refers to it, there is a daily battle to survive the fickle entertainment industry. But Hounsou has weathered bigger storms then that.

Like the premise of fighting for your rights in his latest flick, Never Back Down, Hounsou believes in never giving in.

‘‘Absolutely you should,'' the 43-year-old says when asked if one should fight for their beliefs.

‘‘If you believe in something of value, it's important that you stand up for that. We live in a society where we all have dreams and hopes and it's one thing to be opinionated, but you need to define your opinion of things. Values definitely stand for something.''

Set against the world of mixed martial arts, Never Back Down is the story of Jake Tyler (played by Sean Faris), a tough kid who has to learn that in life, everyone has their fight.

When the star athlete moves to Florida, he's pulled into a fight with a bully and begins his fightback with martial arts lessons from Hounsou.

The fight scenes are brutal and Hounsou says there was no shortage of mega blows to the actors' bodies as they tried to master the fancy footwork and powerful punches of real martial arts and boxing champions.

‘‘It's inevitable, you are going to get hurt,'' Hounsou says. ‘‘Obviously there are times when your buddy is supposed to duck and they don't.''

Indeed. Faris learned this danger the hard way.

After more than eight takes of a fight scene in which Hounsou body-slammed him, Faris was left with a broken back. Only problem was he had no idea of the damage that had been inflicted and spent two weeks walking around before discovering the injury.

Hounsou says the news was a shock and to this day he still hasn't cleared up how it happened.

‘‘I had already left town when I heard that I had broken the lead actor's back,'' he says.

‘‘I certainly was not aware of it and wanted to be extremely careful when we were filming because he's the baby boy of the film. I wanted to make sure the lead actor wasn't in trouble.''

A sportsman himself, Hounsou has taken on everything from soccer to tennis, boxing and kung fu through the years. But even his conditioned body wasn't ready for the onslaught of Never Back Down's gruelling scenes.

‘‘You really have to use your head, it's a difficult sport and we wanted to make sure people appreciate what they (martial artists) do because people look at it as if it is so barbaric,'' he says.

‘‘But every time the camera was rolling everyone was trying to hide their injuries and pretend as if they were in great shape, even when we had sore ankles or our wrists or arms were sore from punching the bag.''

In a change of pace, Hounsou will next be seen in sci-fi thriller Push, filmed in Hong Kong.

Though he is accustomed to racking up the frequent flyer points, he won't be heading back to China any time soon.

‘‘It was dreadful, I didn't like it,'' he says. ‘‘There is no space in Hong Kong, it's very, very tight, tight, tight. It was upsetting, but you just see it through.''

Never Back Down opens today

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