The actress and stunt performer is turning her NYU training into global campaigns while pursuing a future in action cinema.
At 24, Amanda Whyte has wielded a lightsaber for a global Coca-Cola campaign and performed stunt driving for Credit Karma. For the actress and stunt performer, those assignments reflect a career taking shape through the combination of dramatic training and physical precision. Her ambitions now extend toward the kind of action filmmaking that first emerged as an unexpected possibility during her time at New York University.
Whyte arrived at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts to study acting at the Meisner Studio and participated in the Stonestreet Studios Residency Program. Stunt work was not her original destination. That changed when filmmaker Bryan Uvaldo scouted her for his first action film, introducing her to a form of performance that would expand her understanding of what she could do on screen.
The opportunity developed into an ongoing creative partnership. Working with Uvaldo gave Whyte a way to explore action filmmaking while continuing to develop as an actress. Their collaboration illustrates how an early student production can become the beginning of a much longer artistic relationship.
Alongside her acting studies, Whyte began building the physical skills that would support this new direction. Boxing came first, followed by Shotokan karate, progression through its belt-ranking system, and staff training. Each discipline added another dimension to the way she approached movement and performance.
For Whyte, that physical practice belongs alongside character work. A fight sequence requires her to communicate through movement while maintaining the control and timing that choreography demands. Her interest lies in bringing those responsibilities together, so that the action serves the scene and the person she is playing.
That approach has continued to develop through her work with Uvaldo. Their short film Playin’ Around was named a finalist in the 2026 DGA Student Spotlight awards, bringing recognition to a collaboration rooted in their early filmmaking experiences. The project also reinforced Whyte’s interest in pursuing action as a central part of her career.
Her commercial work has brought those skills to a wider audience. In Coca-Cola’s global collaboration with Star Wars, titled “Refresh Your Galaxy,” Whyte appears as a Rebel Jedi. The role combined character performance with lightsaber choreography created by Vincent Bouillon, requiring her to bring convincing intent to carefully staged movement.
The campaign offered an opportunity to work within the visual world of a major entertainment franchise while applying the physical training she had been developing. For a young performer interested in action cinema, it was a significant step from student productions to an international commercial platform.
A Credit Karma campaign, “On Top of Your Money. On Top of Your World,” called on a different part of her growing repertoire: stunt driving. Together, the two projects demonstrate the range of assignments she is beginning to take on, from choreographed combat to performance behind the wheel. Both required her to integrate a physical task into the story a campaign was telling.
Whyte has also continued to work across screen and stage. Her credits include Paramount+’s SkyMed, an appearance on The Amazing Race Canada, and the action films Playin’ Around and Love Bomb Baby. Her theatre experience includes limited Off-Broadway and Edinburgh Fringe runs of The Gospel of Joan (Crawford). That variety has given her opportunities to develop her craft across different settings and performance styles.
As her career progresses, Whyte is also thinking about who has the opportunity to build a future in stunt work. She points to the underrepresentation of women, particularly Black women, as an issue that strengthens her determination to establish herself. She hopes her progress can help create space for other performers who have not always seen themselves reflected in action roles.
Her next ambition is clear. Whyte wants to become a major presence in an action franchise on the scale of Mission: Impossible, contributing to demanding stunt sequences and characters with lasting audience appeal. It is a goal that brings her training and experience into focus: the actress who came to Tisch to study performance now wants to help carry stories in which physical action is essential.
The opportunity that introduced Amanda Whyte to stunts may have been unexpected. Her commitment to developing that career has been deliberate. With each project, she is building toward a future where the acting and the action are equally her own.
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