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Sydney Sweeney is throwing real punches in her new boxing movie Christy.
When Sweeney, 27, spoke with Vanity Fair in an article published Thursday, Sept. 4, ahead of Christy’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, the actress noted that she and the actors who portrayed boxers in the movie are actually fighting each other on the big screen, as opposed to using stunt doubles or pulling pretend punches.
“Every single fight you see, we are actually punching each other. We are going full force,” Sweeney said. “I always believed that you would not be able to make it feel real if it’s a stunt double or if it’s faking the hits.”
In Christy, Sweeney plays real-life boxer Christy Martin, who competed as a professional boxer in the 1990s and 2000s. Martin, now 57, was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2020. Sweeney told the outlet that while making the movie, she grew surprised that Martin’s “story wasn’t more known on a universal, global level because it’s just one of the most harrowing and inspiring women that I’ve ever met in my entire life.”
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Though Sweeney practiced combat sports as a teenager, she still spent three months boxing for several hours each day in addition to weight training and gaining some 30 pounds to portray Martin. “My stances and a lot of my technique is different than boxing,” Sweeney said of her past combat sports experience in jujitsu, grappling and kickboxing. “You square up differently, and of course you don’t get brought to the ground — everything’s on your feet.”
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Sweeney first revealed that she would portray Martin in a movie based on Martin’s life back in May 2024. At the time, she wrote on Instagram that she was “honored to tell Christy’s powerful story,” and told Deadline in a statement that she was “itching to get back into the ring, train and transform my body” for a new role. “Christy’s story isn’t a light one, it’s physically and emotionally demanding, there’s a lot of weight to carry,” she said at the time. “But I love challenging myself.”
An official TIFF synopsis for Christy states that Sweeney’s titular character “starts fighting in — and winning — ‘Toughwoman’ contests” in the late 1980s, “before beginning training with boxing coach Jim Martin (Foster) and embarking on what will prove to be a hugely successful career in a still-nascent sport.”
“Despite a 25-year age difference, Christy and Jim marry, intensifying a codependency exacerbated by drug use, financial malfeasance, and acts of physical and psychological abuse,” the synopsis reads. “Just as Christy is making historic strides in her sport, she’s forced to contend with a horrendous private life — climaxing in an act that nearly kills her.”
Christy costars Ben Foster, Merritt Wever, Katy O’Brian, Chad L. Coleman and Tony Cavalero, among others. The film, directed by David Michôd (The King), makes its world premiere in Toronto on Friday, Sept. 5, though it does not yet have a theatrical release date.
