Tony Jaa was born and raised in a rural area in Surin Province to Rin Saipetch and Thongdee Yeerum. He is of Kuy descent, a Mon–Khmer ethnic group that inhabits Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. Tony Jaa speaks Kuy, Thai and Northern Khmer. In his youth, Jaa watched films by Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan at temple fairs, which inspired him to learn martial arts. He practiced the techniques in his father’s rice paddy. “What they [Lee and Chan] did was so beautiful, so heroic that I wanted to do it too,” Jaa told Time in a 2004 interview. “I practiced until I could do the move exactly as I had seen the masters do it.” Jaa was also inspired by Jet Li.