‘Mortal Kombat’s Lewis Tan aims for more than movie stardom

As the biggest film of his career explodes onto screens, “Mortal Kombat” star Lewis Tan is thinking about boxes — the figurative boxes other people put him in as he rose from martial artist to stuntman to guest actor to, now, movie star facing the milestone of his first studio lead with his eyes firmly on the horizon.

“Everyone tries to put you in a box,” he says, “especially if you’re a person of color. They feel comfortable being like, ‘You’re over here. You do these categories.’ No, we’re artists. Why can’t we do everything?”

In “Mortal Kombat,” Tan, 34, levels up from breakout turns in action series “Into the Badlands” and “Wu Assassins” to anchoring Warner Bros.’ R-rated video game reboot (now in theaters and streaming on HBO Max). As Cole Young — a new character to the franchise — Tan plays an MMA fighter who joins…