Sydney Sweeney<\/a> is nervous. The Spokane actor, who broke out with her role in the series \u201cEuphoria,<\/a>\u201d is backstage at last year\u2019s<\/span> SXSW Film & TV Festival getting ready to take part in a friendly conversation about her booming career. Turns out, she still gets a bit of stage fright. Before she gets called on, I say she can just imagine she\u2019s speaking to a hometown crowd in Spokane. Her response? That would make her even more nervous.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since then, Sweeney has been keeping busy. In just the past two years, she\u2019s been in the films \u201cImmaculate<\/a>,\u201d \u201cMadame Web<\/a>,\u201d \u201cAmericana,\u201d \u201cEden\u201d and \u201cEcho Valley.\u201d Her latest, the biopic \u201cChristy<\/a>\u201d (out Thursday at area theaters), sees her stepping into the ring to play real-life boxing legend Christy Martin.\u00a0<\/p>\n The one thing that\u2019s remained consistent through it all? Sweeney still gets nervous in big moments, especially as she\u2019s gotten more prominent roles to sink her teeth into.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m always anxious around (movies with lots of dialogue) because I want to make sure that I\u2019m getting it all right,\u201d Sweeney said in a recent interview. \u201cBut I\u2019m getting better at that.\u201d<\/p>\n Sweeney\u2019s star career began from humble regional roots. She left memorable impressions in small roles in Washington-shot and -set films like Kevin Hamedani\u2019s profoundly silly horror satire “ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction<\/a>” and John Carpenter\u2019s final feature \u201cThe Ward.\u201d Then, on the cusp of \u201cEuphoria\u201d fame, Sweeney showed she could take on a more leading role in Lara Gallagher\u2019s underrated 2019 Pacific Northwest thriller \u201cClementine.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s something so beautiful about smaller independent films where it\u2019s such a team effort. It doesn\u2019t matter what position you have in it, everybody is helping everybody along,\u201d Sweeney said. \u201cI loved the intimacy of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Though Sweeney has become involved in much bigger projects, it was a smaller film like \u201cClementine\u201d that helped instill a love of working collaboratively on a production.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI love being able to be more involved and bring it all together. It\u2019s so fascinating, the business side of it all \u2026,\u201d Sweeney said. \u201cIt\u2019s really fun to put together the chessboard and move different pieces around. It\u2019s challenging and I like to challenge myself. I feel like I\u2019m learning something every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n Headlines, puzzles and death notices from the Valley delivered to your inbox 7 a.m. daily.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The challenge in \u201cChristy\u201d was as emotional as it was physical. Sweeney, who spent her youth in Spokane playing a variety of sports before beginning to practice kickboxing when traveling back and forth to Los Angeles, said while her previous physical training helped her with the role, getting into the boxer\u2019s state of mind was just as important. In getting to know Martin, a public figure under immense scrutiny, Sweeney said she felt connected with her.<\/p>\n \u201cI love taking somebody who, on the surface or on the page, might feel or look or have been talked about in a certain way and flip it on its head and show people that they need to see something for themselves,\u201d Sweeney said. \u201cI believe that Christy had her own fights within the ring and outside the ring, and I have my own fights within my respective ring and outside my own ring.\u201d<\/p>\n In the case of Martin, her life and the film now dramatizing it become about the domestic violence that nearly killed her. For Sweeney, it was important that the film handle this delicately as she worked with her co-star Ben Foster, who plays Christy\u2019s coach, husband and abuser.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s definitely something that you handle with a lot of care, thought and attention. Having Ben as my scene partner was an added layer to it where I just felt safe and I could trust him,\u201d Sweeney said. \u201cWe both don\u2019t like to rehearse. We like to know what the physicality of the scene is and where the cameras are going to be, but then we want to feel and listen and explore within every single scene that we\u2019re in.\u201d<\/p>\n That physicality, rather than pages and pages of dialogue, is what attracts Sweeney to roles, including \u201cChristy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always believed that the eyes are the window to the soul, and sometimes more can be said without having to say anything at all,\u201d Sweeney said. \u201cI love scenes where I get to just feel.\u201d<\/p>\n Sweeney will next be seen in the thriller \u201cThe Housemaid\u201d in December, is reprising her role in \u201cEuphoria\u201d and is set to star in the upcoming film adaptation of video game \u201cSplit Fiction<\/a>\u201d and the recently announced \u201cThat Man From Rio\u201d from director Justin Lin<\/a>. However, she said that she also has always wanted to make another film shot in Washington and hinted that, if the stars align, that could be something to be nervous about in her future, too.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n