Okay, Sydney Sweeney Could Get an Oscar for This

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For her role as boxer Christy Martin in the upcoming film Christy, Sydney Sweeney gained approximately 30 pounds of muscle, significantly changing her physique. The movie follows Martin’s life from 1989, when she began competing in Toughwoman contests as a teenager, over a period of 22 years, and features a variety of dated hairstyles. Sweeney largely avoids makeup for the role, with the most prominent feature being the realistic depiction of the blood Martin famously shed during a 1996 fight with Deirdre Gogarty – a match that helped popularize women’s boxing. By physically transforming and embracing a less glamorous appearance for Christy, Sweeney is following a common path for actors aiming for serious recognition and potential awards, similar to Robert De Niro in Raging Bull, Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club, Charlize Theron in Monster, and Jennifer Aniston in Cake.

David Michôd, the director of Animal Kingdom, helmed Christy, co-writing the script with Mirrah Foulkes. This film isn’t a typical awards-season grab, and Sydney Sweeney avoids the overly showy performances often seen in biopics. Sweeney has become a frustrating celebrity—she’s not afraid to play with the press, but she’s also carefully managed, making her public appearances feel empty and lacking personality. She’s become a sort of blank slate for public discussion. However, as an actress, she’s captivating, as demonstrated in Christy, the 2023 film Reality, and her decision to start her own production company in 2020 to develop her own projects. While Christy follows the familiar rise-fall-redemption arc of many biopics, it’s more complex than a simple inspirational sports story. It focuses heavily on the abusive relationship between Christy Martin and her coach-turned-husband, Jim Martin (Ben Foster), and how he increasingly controls her, ultimately attempting to murder her when she tries to leave him.

Sweeney is attracted to complex, flawed characters, and what makes her portrayal of Christy so interesting is that she emphasizes the woman’s tough exterior rather than just her difficult circumstances. Martin hid her lesbian identity for most of her career. Growing up in working-class West Virginia with an unaccepting family (played with chilling hypocrisy by Merritt Wever) and then entering a male-dominated sport where women were often objectified, she faced significant challenges. Following Jim’s advice, she adopts a more traditionally feminine appearance – wearing pink and growing her hair long – seemingly to make her aggressive fighting style more acceptable, as if her victories require a reassurance of conventional femininity. She projects confidence publicly, but also displays a troubling tendency to tear down other women, a behavior sadly connected to her choice to stay in an unhappy marriage. During press conferences, she makes homophobic remarks about her opponents, and in interviews, she presents herself as a traditional housewife, denying any feminist beliefs and stating she has no desire to help other women succeed in the sport.

The scenes could have highlighted Martin’s internal struggles – her need to enforce traditional gender roles and her use of insults as a defense mechanism. However, Sweeney portrays Martin as someone actively avoiding deep thought, finding solace in boxing’s simplicity. When Martin mocks Lisa Holewyne (whom she later marries) about becoming unrecognizable after their fight, Sweeney shows no remorse, instead embodying the cruel joy of a popular high school bully. When criticized by Jim for a simple interaction with a neighbor, Martin appears defeated, suggesting her anger is reserved for her female opponents. Alone, she seems lost and disconnected, as if growing up feeling she needed to hide herself, then being molded by a man who erased her identity, has left her without a sense of self.

What truly stands out about the film Christy isn’t the dramatic conflict, but rather the complete emotional commitment of the lead actress, Sweeney. She fully embodies the character’s despair, portraying a woman who seems genuinely overwhelmed by reality each morning. Sweeney doesn’t play the character as someone aware of the story’s direction, nor as someone who even considers what might happen next. It’s tempting to look for real-world connections to how the character is both celebrated and undermined by a dominant societal structure, but the film seems more focused on awards recognition than deep social commentary—and it’s likely to be nominated for an Oscar.

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2025-11-07 23:54