meet mikayla!

As a director, I am drawn to stories centered on the search for connection and a sense of home. I gravitate toward themes of chosen family, and find that real, lived-in conversations often inspire my work most. At the same time, I am passionate about high-concept action—crafting sequences where emotion and movement are inseparable, and where every physical moment reveals something deeper about character.

Mikayla Ashe is a Chinese-born, Miami-raised filmmaker based in Los Angeles. As an adoptee, her work is shaped by questions of identity, belonging, and resilience. With a background as a competitive martial artist and CrossFit athlete turned personal trainer, she brings over 17 years of experience into her work as a director and stunt coordinator, approaching action as both storytelling and psychology. She is the founder of Fight Like a Girl 305, a nonprofit focused on women’s self-defense and combating anti-Asian hate, and is the first approved female stunt coordinator on USC’s Physical Production list.

Her experience spans 21 Laps, 87North, CAPE, and Warner Bros./Cartoon Network, along with collaborations with artists such as Megan Thee Stallion, LISA, and DJ Snake, and companies including Apple TV and Zach King. Trained by world-class stunt performers and martial artists whose work includes Everything Everywhere All at Once and Avatar, Mikayla brings a high level of technical precision to her work. With a background in motion capture, VFX, and animation, she embraces emerging technologies and the evolving role of AI in storytelling—using them to enhance, not replace, human emotion and connection.