<\/p>\n
From donning a prosthetic penis to simulating bizarre sex work in a steamy motel room, Sydney Sweeney was “up for anything” while filming her Oscar-tipped role in boxing drama “Christy,” her director has told AFP.<\/p>\n
Sweeney, who has made negative headlines recently for controversial jeans ads, has become a contender for the Academy Awards for her portrayal of pioneering female fighter Christy Martin.<\/p>\n
The movie had its world premiere this weekend at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Sweeney’s performance and physical transformation drew glowing reviews.<\/p>\n
Though ostensibly a boxing biopic, “Christy” swiftly develops into a surprisingly dark tale of domestic abuse and misogynistic control, as Sweeney’s pugilist falls under the jealous and violent sway of her coach and husband Jim.<\/p>\n
As well as visceral and bloody battles in the boxing ring, the film calls on Sweeney to take on many daring and deeply unglamorous scenes.<\/p>\n
“Sydney’s up for anything — whatever the movie needs, she’ll go there,” director David Michod told AFP.<\/p>\n
In one scene, her character is coerced by her husband into shooting a disturbing homemade sex video involving a fake penis.<\/p>\n
In another, he essentially pimps her out to a man who pays for a highly sexualized grapple in a motel room, which makes for difficult viewing.<\/p>\n
In real life, a broke Jim really did “set up these scenarios where men would pay to spar with her,” explained Michod.<\/p>\n
“She wasn’t having sex with these guys… But it’s a kind of weird sex work.”<\/p>\n
– ‘Creature of the internet’ –<\/p>\n
It is all a far cry from Sweeney’s glamorous public persona.<\/p>\n
Having broken through with roles in acclaimed HBO series “Euphoria” and “The White Lotus,” the in-demand actor had become the lucrative face of several brands.<\/p>\n
Most notably, a series of American Eagle clothing ads proclaiming the blue-eyed and blonde-haired star “has great jeans” were accused of evoking eugenics and even having white supremacist undertones.<\/p>\n
Sweeney swiftly shut down any questions on the topic at the Toronto premiere of “Christy.”<\/p>\n
But Michod said the controversy had never fazed his star.<\/p>\n
“Sydney is a creature of the internet,” said the director.<\/p>\n
“She has a way of just moving through this stuff. I mean, yeah, she’s healthily ambitious, and she’s very good at what she does.<\/p>\n
“She’s out there in the world. And I’m actually very admiring of her, and I’ve stopped worrying about things that I can’t control.”<\/p>\n
– ‘Playful’ –<\/p>\n
The brouhaha does not appear likely to impede Sweeney’s nascent Oscar bid. The film is set for release in November — a prime slot for awards campaigns.<\/p>\n
And reviews for “Christy,” though mixed overall, were nearly unanimous in their praise of the 27-year-old’s performance.<\/p>\n
The real Christy Martin, the daughter of a coal miner, became boxing’s first true female star, but for decades had to suppress her sexuality and was abused by her trainer and eventual husband Jim Martin.<\/p>\n
Martin stabbed and shot his then-wife and remains in prison over her attempted murder.<\/p>\n
Tales of Sweeney’s fight training and her diet of Chick-fil-A sandwiches and milkshakes to gain weight have already been trotted out at the premiere, and will be a staple of the upcoming awards season.<\/p>\n
Perhaps more impressively, Sweeney is called upon to play Martin across more than 20 years of her life, from a vulnerable and naive teenage ingenue to a grizzled abuse survivor.<\/p>\n
“She’ll do anything. She’s just fearless,” said Michod.<\/p>\n
Sweeney brought a “playful” energy to set every day, regardless of the scene being shot, he said.<\/p>\n
Even that creepy sex tape scene?<\/p>\n
“I mean, it’s a fake dick,” laughed Michod.<\/p>\n
“You’re going to find humor in it, however inappropriate.”<\/p>\n
amz\/sst<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sg.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From donning a prosthetic penis to simulating bizarre sex work in a steamy motel room, Sydney Sweeney was “up for anything” while filming her Oscar-tipped role in boxing drama “Christy,” her director has told AFP. Sweeney, who has made negative headlines recently for controversial jeans ads, has become a contender for the Academy Awards for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2004109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[363602,345266,362432,365039,362413,365040,309386,318702],"class_list":["post-2004108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-christy","tag-christy-martin","tag-david-michod","tag-husband-jim","tag-jim-martin","tag-prosthetic-penis","tag-sydney-sweeney","tag-toronto-international-film-festival"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Sydney-Sweeney-fearless-in-new-role-Christy-director-says.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2004108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2004108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2004108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2004109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2004108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2004108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2004108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}