It’s one of the biggest movies of the year so far. The X-Men spinoff “Logan” burst out of the gate, earning nearly $250 million in global revenues in its very first week. One key to Logan’s success may be action sequences in which an 11-year-old stuntwoman plays a big part.

CGTN’s Hendrik Sybrandy reports.

11-year-old Nayah Murphy is a normal school girl in Colorado.

Her mother Stephanie Murphy describes her as “always pushed herself and excelled and no matter how well she did she always wanted to do better”.

That explains the determination she shows in her basement karate studio. This black belt first noticed this martial art in a movie when she was age 3.

“It looked really fun so I just asked my parents can we do karate and so they’re like sure,” Nayah said.

Fast-forward to today, Nayah is one of the stunt doubles who flies through the air in the action sequences in the new hit movie, “Logan.”

“It was crazy cause I’d never done anything like that before and it was really exciting and it was all something new,” said Nayah.

Like the film she appears in, Nayah has had an action-packed last few years. She’s a very competitive rodeo barrel racer. She’s won karate competitions. In fact, her karate teacher helped get her into the movie.

Nayah said, “My karate instructor, he told us about the part and we submitted a stunt reel.”

She get the part because she’s the same body type as the actress who plays X-23, the female clone of Wolverine, Logan’s mutant alter-ego. She performed fight scenes.

“And like I was getting dropped and carried and that kind of thing cause they didn’t want the actress to do that,” Nayah laughed.

Besides that, she also scored a role as one of the mutant children in the movie.

Nayah’s mother is still surprised that she can see her daughter in a movie theater now.

Nayah seems like it. She said, “It was crazy because I was never going in the movie route. I was like oh let’s do karate and then that happened. I’m like oh wow, cool.”

“Logan”, with some violent scenes cut out, is quite popular right now in China.

“To cross cultures like that is really amazing and never expected that either.” Stephanie said.

Nayah, whose name means “champion” in Irish, had to learn a softer style of martial arts for “Logan.” It took about a year to complete her role. “I really enjoyed the training, like learning all the moves and fight scenes and stunts,” she said.

The experience has whetted her appetite for acting parts in which she’s a little less anonymous. Stephanie says her daughter’s brush with Hollywood has made her more well-rounded. She said, “We’re not doing anything crazy. We’re not going to pick up and move to L.A.”