Sydney Sweeney Begged the Christy Director for the Lead and Got It
Sydney Sweeney didn’t wait for a casting call—after bawling through the script for Christy, she phoned the director on the spot and fought to claim the lead as boxing icon Christy Martin.
Sydney Sweeney did not wait for the universe to hand her a boxing movie. She read the script for Christy, started crying, and immediately jumped on Zoom to lobby for the lead. Subtle? Not even a little. Effective? Sounds like it.
How this landed on her radar
In a recent Variety chat with Ethan Hawke, the Euphoria star said she had been actively hunting for a physically demanding role, specifically poking around for something in the MMA space. She grew up kickboxing and wanted a project that actually used that side of her. Then her agent floated a different kind of fight story: a script about Christy Martin, the trailblazing boxer who broke into the mainstream in the 90s.
Sweeney says she was halfway through the script and already in tears. She also admitted she had never learned about Martin before picking it up — which, honestly, is wild given how big Martin’s impact was.
The hard sell
The second she finished reading, Sweeney called director David Michod. No coy testing-the-waters. Straight to the ask.
"I will do anything for you. I will lose myself."
That was the pitch. And then she backed it up.
The transformation
Sweeney says she threw herself at the physical prep. Two-a-day training sessions. About 35 pounds gained to inhabit a boxer’s build. Her words for what that did to her: "I came to life."
What Christy is actually about
Christy follows Christy Martin’s rise through professional boxing and the ripple effect she had on women’s sports. It doesn’t sidestep the brutal part of her story either: the film deals with the severe abuse she suffered from her husband, who was also her trainer. It’s a lot — and that mix of triumph and trauma is exactly what grabbed Sweeney so hard she had to make the call.
Side note for the detail nerds: Sweeney went searching for an MMA project and ended up anchoring a boxing biopic. Not the same discipline, but the path makes sense considering her kickboxing background and the role’s physical demands.