A bruising turn: an A-lister becomes a fighter
Sydney Sweeney looks nothing like the actress audiences know from Euphoria or Anyone But You in the first trailer for Christy. The biopic casts her as Christy Martin, the West Virginia brawler who broke into boxing’s macho 1990s spotlight—and later fought for her life outside the ring. The teaser, released Sept. 11, flashes between dingy gyms, casino undercards, and the kind of ugly living-room fights that never make highlight reels.
Sweeney didn’t just tweak her look. She gained 30 pounds, trained with boxing coaches, and swapped her blonde hair for short, curly brunette wigs to mirror Martin’s style from those early Don King cards. Speaking in Toronto, she said the physical shift made the character click: the stance, the shoulders, the way a fighter breathes between rounds. On screen, that weight reads as power and permanence—someone who expects to take punches and give them back.
Directed by David Michôd (Animal Kingdom, The Rover), Christy aims for grit over gloss. The trailer opens in Itmann, West Virginia—coal country and Martin’s hometown—before racing ahead to smoky hotel corridors and locker rooms where she tapes her hands in silence. Michôd’s films often live in the gray space between ambition and damage. That seems to fit Martin’s story: a rocket ride through a sport that barely wanted her, paired with a personal life crushed by control and abuse.
The film tracks Martin’s leap from tough regional attraction to mainstream draw under promoter Don King. In real life, she exploded onto pay-per-view undercards in the mid-’90s and, after a blood-and-guts scrap with Deirdre Gogarty, landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated—an image that put women’s boxing in front of millions who’d never seen it taken seriously. The trailer nods to that era’s chaos: thick gloves, thicker egos, and TV lights that make every bruise shine.
But Christy isn’t a victory lap. Sweeney’s Martin is coached by Jim Martin, who later becomes her husband—25 years older, increasingly controlling, and violent. The film presses into that private nightmare while Martin navigates her sexuality and the fear that leaving might cost her career. In 2010, the real Christy Martin survived a near-fatal attack and later testified against Jim, who is serving time in prison. The movie isn’t a courtroom replay; it’s a character study of how someone learns to stop absorbing damage that isn’t part of the sport.
Fans were shocked by Sweeney’s transformation. “She looks so different,” one TikTok user wrote. “Yup. She is LEGIT talent. Not just a smoke show,” said another in an Instagram comment. A third chimed in: “She needs to go brunette—it suits her so well.” Public reaction matters here because, for Martin, image always did. She fought in pink trunks, smiled through cuts, and sold a product the boxing business understood: a fighter who could bleed and still charm a camera.
Sweeney joins a small list of actors who rewired their bodies to chase a role’s truth—think Hilary Swank learning to punch in combinations for Million Dollar Baby or Charlize Theron gaining weight to sink into Monster. Bulking up isn’t a stunt. For fighters, mass changes how punches land and how footwork flows. It changes how you carry your chin, how you square your shoulders, and whether a jab can move someone off their line. The trailer’s training beats—mitt work, hard sparring, rope—look lived-in, not borrowed.
Christy Martin’s arc also helps explain why this story lands now. Women’s boxing has spent years pushing from sideshow to headliner, with names like Katie Taylor, Amanda Serrano, and Claressa Shields drawing real gates. Martin’s 1990s fame arrived when the sport didn’t have a road map for a female star. She had to become one in real time: talking her way onto cards, selling her fights, and matching violence-for-violence with opponents who came to take her spot.
Michôd’s approach, judging by the cut, leans into the business of that ascent. Promoters and coaches tell Martin who she needs to be. The ring gives her a different answer: that she already is enough, as long as she keeps her hands up and her legs under her. That push-pull—between who you are and who you’re told to be—threads through the scenes about sexuality and control at home. Boxing is literal; the rest is messier.
Sweeney talked about feeling “Christy’s power” as the weight came on and the training deepened, and you can see that in the way she plants on her lead foot. She looks like a fighter who drilled until the motion sat in her bones. It’s a performance that asks the viewer to stop looking for the star and start watching the athlete. If it holds for two hours, it’s the kind of turn that can reframe a career.
Key details so far:
- Release date: November 7 (theatrical)
- Director: David Michôd
- Story focus: Christy Martin’s 1990s rise, abusive marriage, and fight for autonomy
- Setting: Itmann, West Virginia to the national boxing scene
Christy Martin is still a presence in the sport today, mentoring fighters and speaking openly about survival and second chances. That reality sits behind every frame of the trailer. The bruises are real, but so is the rebuild. For the film to work, it has to honor both.
Why Christy Martin’s story still hits hard
Violence in the ring comes with consent and rules; violence at home tries to erase both. That contrast gives the film its shape. It also explains why the trailer lingers on small domestic details—closed doors, quiet rooms, looks that say more than dialogue. Boxing teaches accountability. Abuse hides from it. The narrative makes that difference feel physical.
The sport’s history helps here. In the ’90s, women’s fights were often slotted as novelties. Martin fought until that label stopped making sense. Her bouts brought action rounds, TV-friendly drama, and proof that skill and grit don’t care about gender. The movie, by focusing on the person who paid the toll, pulls the legend back down to its human cost.
If the early footage is any guide, Christy is less about a fairy-tale comeback than a decision: choosing yourself. The punches matter, but the choice matters more. That’s the story Sweeney seems ready to carry—and the one audiences will likely show up to see.