“Whenever I hear someone say ‘Thank you for doing this, I have dealt with this in my lifetime’ or ‘I know someone who is dealing with this,’ and they share their story, that has meant so much to me,” says Sydney Sweeney, discussing responses she has received to her latest film, Christy, in which she plays a trailblazing boxer and domestic abuse survivor, during a recording of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. “I’ve never had a character that has truly impacted people’s lives in that type of way, and it’s kind of been life-changing.”
In Christy, a film based on real people and events, which David Michôd (Animal Kingdom) directed and on which Sweeney served as a producer, the 28-year-old plays Christy Martin, a young woman from West Virginia who became a major figure in the world of women’s boxing in the 1990s, while privately facing increasingly horrific abuse at home from her coach-turned-husband, Jim Martin (played by Ben Foster in the film).
Sweeney has previously received widespread acclaim from critics and the industry for her work, particularly for her performances on the TV shows Euphoria and The White Lotus, both of which brought her Emmy nominations, and in the 2023 film Reality, for which she received a Critics Choice Award nomination. She also anchored —and produced — the 2023 rom-com film Anyone But You, which grossed $220 million worldwide, making it a bona fide blockbuster. But never before has she received the sort of Oscar buzzthat she is garnering right now for Christy, in which she appears in virtually every scene and gives a truly transformative performance.
The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and was released in theaters by Black Bear Pictures on Nov. 7. While it has returned only $2 million at the box office against its $15 million budget, and while it has polarized critics (it’s at 66 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), much like Sweeney has polarized social media (thanks to her recent American Eagle jeans ad), the bottom line is that those who love the film —including quite a lot of industry insiders and awards voters — really love it (it has a 96 percent RT score from audiences). And if you love Christy, then you love Sweeney’s star turn in it.
Over the course of this episode, Sweeney opens up about how she got her start as a child actor, and why she felt responsible for the subsequent dissolution of her parents’ marriage; how her career finally began to gain traction via TV’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Sharp Objects and the film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood before exploding thanks to Euphoria; and how Reality, while little seen, meant a lot to her and elevated her standing in the eyes of filmmakers, including Michôd.
She also discusses how she learned about —and why she so aggressively pursued — Christy. She elaborates about how she drew upon her prior fight training — and did extensive additional training, as well as diet and exercise — to put on 35 pounds of muscle (“I went back home to Idaho and I turned my grandma’s shed into my Rocky gym, I built a floor ring and I hung some heavy bags, and I brought my trainer up and I worked out every single day for three months”). She talks about what she learned from spending time with Martin herself (“Within like five seconds of meeting her, she became my best friend —I was like, ‘I want you around 24/7′”). And she describes how, in pursuit of verisimilitude, she volunteered to not just punch others, but also to actually get punched herself, in the film (“We were just pummeling each other; I mean, there were bloody noses, bruises, I got a concussion, like, we were going at it”).
Sweeney also teases her upcoming films The Housemaid, in which she stars opposite Amanda Seyfried (“It’s juicy, it’s a thriller, it’s a wild fun ride, it’s hot — you guys are gonna love it”), and Scandalous!, a film that she is producing and hired Colman Domingo to direct, in which she will play the legendary actress Kim Novak opposite David Jonsson’s Sammy Davis Jr. (“It’s been a labor of love”).
And, upon being asked to name the biggest misconception about her, she replies with a laugh: “Don’t even go there — I mean, name ’em, man!”