Fans went wild last fall when paparazzi captured some photos of Sydney Sweeney looking very much unlike Sydney Sweeney while filming an upcoming movie. Now, the actress is giving more details about her upcoming Christy Martin biopic—and the physical work it took for her to get into character.
In a cover story interview for W, Sweeney dished on the still-untitled movie that will see her playing Martin—a pioneering boxer who helped to legitimize the sport for women in the ‘90s. “She was the first woman fighter on the cover of Sports Illustrated and fought on the Mike Tyson undercard,” David Michôd, the movie’s director and co-writer, told W. But Martin’s life was not a picture-perfect one.
Related: Sydney Sweeney’s Breaks Silence on Relationship Status
“Her husband was also her trainer, and then, after her success, he tried to murder her,” Michôd explained. “Our film is a wild mix of inspiring underdog sports-world story and personal saga.”
In order to look the part of a world-class boxer, Sweeney underwent a complete transformation after spending months working out and packing on about 30 pounds.
“Sydney trained her butt off to play the part,” Michôd told W. But Sweeney tells a different version of the story. Specifically, that her butt was “huge.”
“I came onboard to play Christy, and I had about three and a half months of training,” the 27-year-old said. “I started eating. I weight-trained in the morning for an hour, kickboxed midday for about two hours, and then weight-trained again at night for an hour.”
While speaking about her training, Sweeney found a photo of her on the set, in which she was practically unrecognizable. Between her musclebound look, not to mention brown contact lenses and a brunette wig that saw her sporting a kind of mullet hairstyle, Sweeney looks nothing like the characters she is best known for in projects like Euphoria, The White Lotus, and Anything But You. And she loved every second of it.“My body was completely different,” she said. “I didn’t fit in any of my clothes. I’m usually a size 23 in jeans, and I was wearing a size 27. My boobs got bigger. And my butt got huge. It was crazy!… But it was amazing: I was so strong.”
For his part, Michôd could not have asked for a more enthusiastic star. “The beauty of Sydney is that she turned up to work every day with her tail wagging, ready to go,” he said. “No matter how tough it was, she was like a ray of sunshine.”
Sydney Sweeney Details Wild Body Transformation for New Movie first appeared on Men’s Journal on Jun 10, 2025
