Were she not Sydney Sweeney and prone to making headlines for nearly every move she makes onscreen and off, viewers might not immediately realize it’s the Euphoria actress who’s portraying groundbreaking former professional boxer Christy Salters Martin when watching the sports biopic Christy.
“When I looked in the mirror for the first time, I was like, ‘Whoa.’ I didn’t even recognize myself,” says Sweeney, who gained 35 pounds, wore brown contact lenses and a variety of late-’80s and early-’90s mullet-style brunette wigs, and trained with a dialect coach to imitate the real-life athlete’s thick West Virginia accent for the role. “As an actor, I dream of being able to have roles like that where I get to lose myself completely, and I was able to do that with Christy.”
Christy’s story is a layered tale of resilience, the film beginning with her teen years as a basketball player at Mullens High School who’s in a same-sex relationship with her teammate, of which her conservative parents disapprove. The boxing arena, which Christy entered in 1989 at the age of 21, proved to be equally closed-minded, leading the young talent, nicknamed “the Coal Miner’s Daughter” after her father’s occupation, to hide her sexual identity. Just two years later, in 1991, Christy married her 47-year-old boxing coach, Jim Martin (Ben Foster), who became increasingly controlling and physically and financially abusive as she climbed the ropes of the industry — inking a deal with famed promoter Don King, played by Chad L. Coleman in the film, and becoming the first female boxer on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Nineteen years into their marriage, Jim stabbed Christy multiple times and shot her in the torso with her own pink 9mm handgun on Nov. 23, 2010, leaving her for dead in their Apopka, Florida, home. Christy managed to survive the attack, escaping to safety by dragging her injured body outside the house while Jim showered, and flagging down a passerby who took her to a nearby hospital. Jim was found guilty of attempted second-degree murder in 2012 and sentenced to 25 years in prison, where he died on Nov. 26, 2024.
“When I first read [the script for] Christy, I actually was shocked that I had no idea who she was,” Sweeney admits. “I’d never heard of her story before, and, automatically, I was like, ‘OK, that means I need to make sure this happens.’ “
Doubling down on that resolution, she says, “there was no hesitancy at all” on her part about taking on the role. “But I was definitely intimidated,” Sweeney notes. “I knew it was going to be an immense challenge and weight on my shoulders.”
Celebrity personal trainer Grant Roberts and world champion boxing trainer Matt Baiamonte aided Sweeney in her physical transformation into the 2009 super welterweight titleholder. Combat sports weren’t entirely new to Sweeney, who began kickboxing and grappling at the age of 12, and even worked with Ronda Rousey’s sensei Gene LeBell. But getting into shape to face an unknown opponent and training to replicate a former champion’s unique fighting style require two completely different focuses, says Sweeney.
“Every single fight that you see in the movie is one of Christy’s real fights, so it wasn’t like I was just learning boxing and we were randomly making up all these fights. We actually pulled real combinations from her specific fights and incorporated that into every fight in the movie, so I was learning how to box like Christy, her exact moves, everything.”
That effort continued throughout the two months of filming for the Black Bear Pictures project, which premiered at TIFF and made its theatrical debut in November. (The film is currently available for streaming On Demand.)
Sydney Sweeney, shown with Bryan Hibbard (center) and Chad L. Coleman (right), portrays female boxing champion Christy Martin in the sports biopic Christy.
Black Bear/Courtesy Everett Collection
“I’d wake up an hour before my call time so that I could do an hour of weight training,” Sweeney explains. “Then I would go film for 14 hours, and then I would usually have an hour to two hours of fight choreography, and then I would go home and try to see if I could get another hour of weight training in, and then I would ice my entire body.”
Beyond embodying Christy’s physical presence, Sweeney had a number of emotional touchpoints to hit as well, especially concerning Christy’s fear and shame around Jim’s abuse. “The scene with Merritt [Wever] when Christy was trying to ask for her mom’s help was really hard,” the actress confesses. “It was hard on a personal level because I have such an amazing mom who has supported me in everything that I’ve done, and I felt so much for Christy and for others who might not have parents that they can turn to like that.”
Christy was a part of the creative process for the project from the very beginning and regularly came to set and even sat in on some of the star’s training sessions.
“I was so nervous, like, ‘Please be proud of me,’ ” Sweeney admits. “[Christy] said that she’d sign me up and promote me as a fighter if I wanted to because I’m actually pretty good.”
The boxing pro’s praise for, and defense of, Sweeney has continued post-premiere, even as the film had a lackluster showing at the box office, bringing in just $1.3 million in its opening weekend. In a mid-November post on Instagram, Christy wrote, “Syd not only worked her ass off for this film, she worked her ass off for me. For my story. For so many others suffering in silence. So I want to be clear about who Syd is. She is my friend and ally!”
Sweeney has also garnered critical acclaim for her portrayal, receiving the Spotlight Award at the SCAD Film Festival in October.
“I put a lot of love and hard work into this, so it feels good that people are recognizing that and that the story is resonating with people,” says Sweeney. “But for me, I’ve always said Christy’s opinion is the only one that matters to me. I did this for her, and she loves it, so I’m good.”
Of Christy’s decision to let her life unfold on the big screen, Sweeney says, “She wants her story to save lives, and she wants people to see that the strength is always in you, you just have to find it. She’s faced so many challenges and adversities and people who haven’t supported who she wanted to be, and seeing who she is now — she’s a proud gay woman, she’s married to Lisa [Holewyne, her former ring rival], she’s a champion, she’s the ultimate underdog.”
As for whether the role will shift public focus from Sweeney’s sexualized media image to the merits of her actual performance, the two-time Emmy nominee, with two supporting actress nods in 2022 for her roles as Cassie Howard in Euphoria and Olivia Mossbacher in The White Lotus, as well as a 2019 SAG Award nomination for best performance by an ensemble for her portrayal of Eden Spencer in The Handmaid’s Tale, says she hopes so.
“I think that I’ve chosen a lot of characters that I get to explore different versions of life and lose myself to. Cassie has definitely been very culturally relevant and a huge thing, so I think that’s very in the forefront of everyone’s minds. But everything since then hasn’t been [overtly sexual]. Eden wasn’t, Reality wasn’t, Americana wasn’t, White Lotus wasn’t,” says Sweeney, who’ll next be seen in the Dec. 19 release The Housemaid, opposite Amanda Seyfried (who also plays the titular character in The Testament of Ann Lee). “It’s just whatever people want to talk about.”
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