Sydney Sweeney on Portraying Christy Martin, Euphoria Season 3, Being Sexualized on Social Media

Hey, I'm Julia Cunningham, and I'm so honored to have the cast and director and real-life person behind this film called Christie, which will be released into theaters this Friday, November 7th. I have Sydney Sweeney as the titular Christie, i.e. Christie Martin. Welcome. Thank you. And then, shocking turn of events, the actual Christie Martin, who I'm so excited to have your take on this as well, but welcome. Thank you very much. And then we have Ben Foster, who stars as James Jim in the film Martin, who is the kind of manager, villain, slash, you know, figure in this film. Ben, welcome. Thank you for being here on the couch with us. Thank you. Thank you. We're learning in. And then we have Katie O'Brien, who plays this fascinating character, Lisa Hollowin, who is, you know, this sort of at Halloween. Is that how I, did I say it wrong, Christie? Hollowine. Hollowine, excuse me, who is the sort of fascinating figure within the film, because an adversary, but also ultimately a beam of light through this story. And then the director and co-writer behind the film, David Michaud. Welcome. Can't forget Champ. Oh, my God. And Champ, who is by their side as well. This beautiful Pomeranian, who is wild. And you can see behind the scenes on our socials, who's absolutely great. But I mean, Christie, let's start with you, because this is your life. We're seeing this, you know, deeply impactful woman who was, you know, the boxer that put female boxing on the map. You were a champ. And yet behind you was this destruction happening in your personal life as you were on the rise. And we see the entire journey of the manipulation that happens within domestic violence situations. And so you've begun sort of telling your story in different ways in more recent years, including a documentary that came out via Netflix. But I'm so curious, you know, how you were ready to not only have your story told under your terms, but also to allow to unpack and be part of your story in this way. Well, I made a deal with God from my hospital bed that if he would let me live, I would help as many people. Actually, the truth is, I said, I will help one person before I die, not go down the same path that I went down. And then the arrogant me kicked in and said, no, no, no. I want to help one person every day, not have to go through the things that I went through. And so thus, let's do the movie because somebody like Sidney portraying me, that's going to bring so many eyes to the theater and so many eyes to the movie. We're going to help the number of people that we're going to help and change their life is incredible. Absolutely. I mean, and the other thing is like, not only that there's this kind of story of female sports, there's a lot of, you know, LGBTQ plus sort of larger ideas of what is gender roles within sports as well. And in relationships and, you know, internalized homophobia at times and, you know, all sorts of things that unpack alongside being in this, you know, straight relationship with your manager and kind of agent in a way who, you know, is ultimately a destructive human being. And, you know, not to say like, oh, I'm sure that you've done there because I'm sure you have having to like sort of deal. But you had to kind of look maybe at your own sort of me. Do you feel internalized homophobia in that way? Well, internalized homophobia, I don't know exactly what that would mean. Like, this is the thing. As I went through my boxing career, Jim Martin would say to me, go out there and say all these negative things about my opponents. Yeah. And I would tell him, Jim, all we're going to do is bring somebody from my past out. Because they're going to say, oh, well, that's great. She's saying this now. But what about when she was in college and this was her girlfriend? And here's a picture. So I just hope that this shows people there's another way that you don't have to. And we have to be concerned with the person that's so homophobic. Usually it's those people that have some reason that they're hiding their own sexuality. All right. You know, if you're so uncomfortable with something, it's there's usually a reason why. Can I speak on your behalf? Yes, David. I'll tell you what was going through your mind. Yes, preach. For us, Mira and I, my co-writer, the character was large. You know, it's like West Virginia, late 80s, very conservative, gay woman. It was just not going to work. That was what the world was telling Christy. And so she made a decision in a way, having discovered that she was exceptionally good at boxing to marry boxing. And that's what Marilyn Jim was. But everything from that point on was about putting on a disguise, putting on a false. You know, so that was it was pretending to be a happily married woman and trash talking her gay opponents. But, you know, it was a kind of form of like denial as well, self-preservation. Yeah, a shield in a way. It was I had to pick and choose your battles as you move through life, and I would either have to say those negative things to my opponent or battle with Jim when the press conference would be over. And after a while, it was just easier to say those really nasty and hurtful things than to argue with him. And that was across the board, many, many other subjects other than just the homophobic. Right. Absolutely. And Sydney, for you, like taking on this role, I mean, you have in your history, jujitsu and grappling and sort of these foundations beyond, you know, working into the boxing. So in your mind, you must have said, OK, I kind of understand in a way a core of what I'll have to take on physically. But then emotionally, it's such another beast. And so tell me about, you know, having access to Christie, but then also how you wanted to, you know, step into this role and cover all elements of it. I mean, it was definitely an immense weight. Christie's story is beyond important to tell. She is inspiring and an ultimate underdog. And she completely changed the way that women in sports and boxing have gone on through time past her. And so I knew that every single detail that was going to go into this, every choice I made was going to be a very important one. And having Christie by my side during it was the biggest gift I could have asked for. She was with us during prep, filming. She's here now with us, which is so cool, by the way. It's amazing. I mean, she's become our really close friend. And I always felt like I could turn to her for everything. She gave me some great pointers when we were fighting. She would yell at me different, different swings I needed to do. It's in your blood to coach, too. She would come back and say, but Christie, you know I was going to throw the left hook. No, you're like, I know exactly what happens in this. It's played out. Well, all the fights that you see in the movie are the fights in her real life. Yes. Oh, yeah. The combinations. I went to watch some on YouTube and I was like, it's like a mirror. Yeah, we went and we made sure that the combinations and the moves were the same from Christie's real life. And so when she'd be like, hit her with the left, I'm like, Christie, you know what's going to come next. But all of that aside, it was a huge undertaking. The emotional toll of the span of her lifetime. There's a lot of growth and a lot of pain and a lot of misunderstanding. The physical change that it also I undertook was a lot. I had about two and a half months to train leading up to it, and I put on 35 pounds. So it was a lot of prep and egg white. Yeah. Oh, everything. Yeah. Well, it was egg whites, chicken. What else? You even don't. Don't know. Yeah, I was eating everything. My Smuckers. Yeah, that's my nickname on set was Smuckers because I ate so many. But the Uncrustables. Yes. Delicious. But I would drink so many protein shakes. I would just plug my nose and down them. Oh, it was a lot. I mean, but that's like, you know, an impressive feat to take on the weight because as sort of like the press surrounding this is that like you guys were doing it in the ring that you wanted to make sure. And David, I want your sort of take on this direction wise, just like having those full punches like it never quite looks the way you want it to look unless there's sort of contact, you know, to see how, you know, brutal these fights can be. And that's such a challenge. So were you so stoked when Sidney was like, I'll get punched for the movie? This this is fine. I'll do it. Yeah, I mean, I could tell within like about five minutes of talking to Sid that she was going to be up for this because it is a big challenge. There's one thing about wanting to play a challenging character, but actually understanding the work that would be required and not just the training, the working out and having to put on the weight and all that stuff, but the just the the grind of it when we're shooting, you know, it's like we would shoot. This was a tough shoot. We were moving and doing overtime every day. And we would we would the cast and crew shoot a whole day and then Sid would have to go and keep training and keep rehearsing for the fights the next day. But the yeah, if I was I mean, I would never have said to Sid, you're going to I'm going to need you to be punched in the face. Yeah, don't say that to women. But she was just she she had we had I just want to do another where any opportunity I get to do a little shout out to Wally Garcia, our stunt coordinator slash fight choreographer and his team of amazing women who played Sidney's opponents. They were badass. They all came. Sid and them all came to it like an arrangement pretty quick. I think that they're going to go hard and maybe maybe they'll maybe there'll be a broken nose every now and then or something. But you can see it in the movie. It looks great. I think the fighting looks really good. No, the fighting really does, because I just recently watched like the film portrait of it's called Mr. Scorsese. It's about Martin Scorsese and his like full film career. And so it led me back to watching Raging Bull just because I was like, it's been a while. I'm going to rewatch it. And I just watch it just prior. And that's sort of, to me, like one of those standards of how brutal a boxing fight can be. And you're seeing the blood up close and the sweat borderline hitting the camera and everything. And you need so much of this in the film where you're seeing the destruction happening in Christy's life, but then to be so in it with her when she's coming to life in that ring, it's almost like its own character in a way. And it's hard to portray. And you did such a beautiful job shooting it that way. We're, by the way, talking about the film Christy, which will be in theaters on Friday, November 7th. And I have Sydney Sweeney, who stars as Christy Martin and the real Christy Martin as well. And Ben Foster, who plays the husband manager role of Jim Martin, James Martin, the director, David Michaud, who's the director and co-writer of the film, and Katie O'Brien, who's Lisa Hollowine, who I was like, gotta nail that name. The real Christy Martin is here. But I wanted to talk to Ben, you as well. You know, this is a figure which, if you're not as familiar with the story, you know, I want it to be unfolding over the course of the film. But we know that there was a really destructive relationship at the core of Christy's life in this time in which she marries her manager. There is a lot of manipulation and degradation that happens within that relationship and becomes overwhelmingly violent. But for you to take on that sort of role, you know, not that we ever want to look at a figure who, you know, we could quote as evil or whatever else. But I'm assuming you're trying to find, you know, what is the humanity of him or what is it that I can bring to show how this happens in relationships as well? You know, it doesn't start out that way immediately, although quickly into it. Well, Christy's story is is mind blowing. Yeah. And now whom I consider a friend. This story is not singular. It's singular for Christy and her triumphant career, survival and and return to not just Christy Martin promotions as she continues the great arc of of of shepherding new boxers into fandom and success. She's also one of the great advocates of domestic violence. And as she said earlier, I try to do one good thing a day. We were talking about this last night and there was a box check. Like I did this for this person yesterday. I showed up for this kid yesterday. I drove 10 miles to go see a kid in a coma who's a fan to say hello. She couldn't hear her, but she shows up. And Christy inspired all of us. She continues to. She's she's a comet. They don't come around like her in terms of being in service of this. You are a comet. Tell us more about the universe. But I mean, for you, Ben, I mean, tackling this figure who looms large in Christy's life. Tell me a little bit about getting into that mind frame. There are so many people who are at home, who are in circumstances where they feel they cannot escape. And on the page, certainly it's not what we call the most palatable or charming role. But what we do is. Is try to tell a story and when Dave brought it to me and we had our first discussion, it felt that we could be in service of a question. So when people, to Christy's point, when when they see the film, could have a conversation of if you see somebody in trouble, if you sense a loved one is suffering, if you yourself feel trapped, do your inventory and get out if you can. And that became a door rather than saying, OK, we're going to play the monster. It's for me, the door was personally. You just scratch your head. How could a human being do this to another human being? And then what became apparent to me was profound male insecurity, male fragility that had to steer someone away from sexuality, identity, their very self, which then goes to the term coercive control, which is illegal in the UK. It's not in the States. And Dave brought my attention to that very early on in the project of saying, let's Trojan horse this film. Let's make an exceptional boxing triumphant film. But let's also make sure that we check the boxes of how this happens to people in order to ask a question so we can have a conversation after the film. Yeah, absolutely. And for you, Katie, I mean, you play Lisa, who I mentioned, you know, early on is like, you know, in a tough situation as an adversary of Chrissy Martin in which they box and they fight. And there is, you know, as Chrissy said earlier, would use what could be considered slurs to, you know, Lisa's character to dress them down before a fight and other things. But later, their relationship changes in many ways, as you'll see, but also, you know, helps trying to train her later in her career as well and kind of becomes like this beacon of light. She has this own sort of transformation within the film, which is like incredibly moving when you know Chrissy's life story. And so tell me about kind of tackling Lisa, who's also alive and was, you know, I'm assuming was able to speak to you as you tackled the character. I don't know if I could tackle Lisa. She's really sturdy. She's also a champion boxer. She gave me a little like tap on the shoulder, blew me back. I was very fortunate to get an opportunity to talk to her before I stepped foot on set, and she was very gracious with her time, even she was like working. So it would be like, you know, 30 minutes and I'd ask some questions. She'd tell me some stuff that she thought might be relevant. And then she'd be like, hang on, I gotta go to work. I'll call you back. So it was like I was I was so happy that she was even able and willing to fit me in to her schedule. And then, you know, it's like getting I kind of got the understanding that she's just a very intuitive person and is is very interested in helping and reaching out and can see when something is is off. And she's she said that, like in this time, she very much felt that energy was off. Something was off. So then I think we both kind of always want to bring people up and raise people up and make people happy and kind of help erase that energy. So I guess I didn't have time to really get her dialect down like from Hawaii and Texas and it's like a whole mishmash, like a really cool way of speaking. I didn't have any time to get her movements down anything. And so I just apologized ahead of time. I was like, I think I'm just going to try to get as much of your general vibe down. And she's like, I don't care. She's like, I feel represented by you. That's all that matters to me. And she's like, this is Christy's story and I'm just here to support it. And I think in the end, that's that's what the character is and the person is here to support Christy. So that was the goal. If I can just like blow Katie's trumpet or blow a trumpet for Katie for a moment. It was like, you know, Lisa was one of many opponents that Christy fought at the peak of her career and won, you know, Christy won and became a very important figure in her life, became her sparring partner before Layla. And what I knew as a director was that I needed someone who could come in in that peak when it's all just Christy, Christy, Christy winning, winning, winning and have one of those opponents come in and just own the screen when she was there. You know, just be a ray of sunshine and then leave the movie for a little while and then come back. Every time the beauty of Katie is she's, I don't know, the camera loves Katie and Katie's presence is so strong that whenever she entered the movie, you went, oh, this person's going to this person's going to mean something. Yeah, there's like real glimmer of hope in some darkness. Yeah, it's I didn't I don't know what I would have done if Katie hadn't said yes to me. But I'm glad that she did. Well, and, you know, the way the movie begins, I actually like had taken a note of it when I was watching it, because, you know, we're in West Virginia. It's 1989. We're sort of starting from the beginning, like high school age, where Sydney, as Christy Martin is discovering that she has this punch and other things, but is also in a relationship with like a fellow high school student is like starring in sports, doing all these things. But in that opening sequence of the movie, we see her at home, father played by Ethan Embry, mother played by Merritt Weaver. And you just walk in the way you would from school. Hey, mom, she walks right past you. And it's not until like three minutes and seven seconds that they're interacting that finally Merritt Weaver as the mother acknowledges doesn't even really necessarily say anything, but acknowledges. And there is this undercurrent as well as this, you know, really tough relationship between Christy and her mother, your mother, you know, and I'm so curious, like having to lay out that relationship, you know, and how tough your mom could be, even when there were times where you went to her and said, this is really bad. I'm in a bad place. And based on various reasons, feeling religious, being like, you got to try and make it work with your husband. So my relationship with my mother was very complicated. Yeah, at the least. She actually passed in February. And Monday, just a couple of days ago was her birthday. Oh, wow. So it's a tough time. But everything that's portrayed in the movie is real. I mean, that was the confrontation, the battle, the pull and tug, you know, that we had. And I did. It takes a lot of courage to reach out to someone. But if you're going to reach out to someone, you always think it's your mother is going to help you. And I finally got the courage to reach out to my mother. And she basically denied to help me. I mean, she denied me when I was trying to explain to her that it wasn't a good situation. So it's tough. I mean, she left this world without me fixing it, if it could be fixed. I tried really hard. I'm sure. Yeah, and then I think in the movie, it's a great representation of how I don't want parents to be with their children. They come and say, I'm gay, I'm this, I'm that, whatever. That's not what their parents might think normal is. Would you rather have your child be gay or bleeding out on a bedroom floor? I would hope that they would say, I would rather have my child alive and gay. But that's and that's the words I said to my mother. You know, I lived this life for you for 20 years. Now I'm going to live the next 20 for me to make me. Yeah, we see how, you know, the character of Jim played by Ben Foster, you know, leans into that fractured relationship and kind of holds that over you. And so, Sydney, like for you, just in terms of the larger life that you're covering in the film, Christie, I mean, was it more of the emotional stuff that you were stressed out about beyond the inhaling of protein shakes to keep on the sort of like look of what needed to be done and the physical nature of it? But I mean, you know, this is just one of the aspects that are so physically and emotionally demanding is the relationships with Jim, is the relationship with her mother, her own internalized relationship with boxing and making that it start. I mean, there's a lot to like unpack for an actor. Yeah, there were a lot of complexities to this role, for sure. I don't I don't think I was ever stressed out per se. I think Christie stressed me out the most. I just wanted to make her happy. Yeah, I just I think that was the thing that made me the most nervous as I really hope Christie likes me and likes what I do for her and high player. But everything else was it was like it was like a puzzle that you're putting together. I had the big piece, the big piece for of Christie and then trying to fill out all the other pieces around it of how does she become who she is today? Because I'm meeting on script a version of her at 24 years old, 22 years old and going through a span of a lifetime. So it's having to build layers on top of layers to create who she is now. Yeah. And David, for you, just in terms of directing, were you more comfortable with the action or some of the more emotional turmoil that's taking place? Because you kind of cover both in your oeuvre of work. I love emotional turmoil. That's my that's my happy place. I mean, you're good at it. You're good at it. No, it is. I mean, I I my favorite thing in the world is just a bunch of good actors in a room. Delivering lines that I've written or co-written, you know, that for me is just that's fun. The the boxing stuff is like for me, it's it's it's I mean, here's the thing when I remember when I made The King with Timmy Chalamet and Joel Edgerton, we did a massive battle sequence in that film that took two like two weeks to shoot. It was I just found it the most painful working experience I'd ever had. I vowed never to shoot action again. It broke you, basically. Yeah, it was just horrible. It was both incredibly stressful and unbelievably boring to shoot. And but you got Sidney to turn around. She was like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Tell me more about this. And then you have you have you have faith that when you get all of that stressful, boring like crap into an edit room that you'll actually be able to piece it into something that feels kind of great. And it's sort of how the boxing that we shot in the film was... Were you bored? I wasn't bored. I was stressed. But I also a lot of it I had to hand over because, you know, you guys are in the ring with Wally, the fight choreographer, and Jermaine, the DP. And I kind of, on a certain level, have to just go, all right, guys, just we know what this beat is. You guys just do it. And they do it over and over. I actually need to stay out of the way. And then and, you know, again, we didn't have a lot. I would have loved to have another three or four weeks to shoot all the fighting in the movie. We just had to motor through it and go, OK, I hope that we got what we needed. And then you get in an edit room and then you start to then that's the edit room is where I feel like I have that joy of making something beautiful. That's when you go, you know. I don't know, definitely on this film, it was like you just chisel away at the fight scenes, and I'm really proud of them now. I look at them and go, they're kind of great. I'm proud of the work that everybody did. Because it's really hard, you know, I studied a lot of boxing films before I went in to make this one. You go, OK, there's a lot of a lot of pitfalls to look out for. Oh, sure. But I don't know, maybe it's me and maybe I love my own baby or whatever. But I just think the fight scenes in this film are really great. Well, they're incredible also because they're such like, as I was saying earlier, like a weight to it, because that's when the character of Christie is coming alive. This is her life. This is what she's put everything into. And it just takes on such meaning over the course of the film as your personal life through your husband begins to unravel in such a treacherous way and the way that the manipulation was and all of these things to see that that was poured into boxing. And, you know, you see it all unfold over the course of the film, but there's truly a moment where there's a breaking point because you feel lied to about your career, that the boxing might be ending. And that's when you're like, enough, you know, kind of like flip the table, which, you know, you just know, based on like those fights, how it plays out. We're talking about the film Christie, by the way, which will be in theaters on Friday, November 7th. And I have Sydney Sweeney, who stars as the titular Christie Martin. We have the real Christie Martin and Champ, who's just laid out, being pet by Sydney, just like literally in dog heaven. Just, you know, we'll share that on our socials for sure. And then Ben Foster as the husband of Christie Martin named Jim Martin. Katie O'Brien is Lisa Hollowine and David Michaud, who's the director and co-writer behind the film. I wanted to do like a little bit of name association because also so many of you have so many people in common and like David's wearing literally a Robert Pattinson t-shirt because of their extensive work together. But Christie, I kind of want to start with you because within the film, you know, we see the side of your rise where you're on the cover of Sports Illustrated and this wildlife that you have that comes on so quickly. Lots of money, fame, you know, this massive pay-per-view and also lingering there is Mike Tyson. Like give us a little like sort of like what was your take on Mike Tyson in that era? You know, Mike Tyson was always good to me. He was happy I was on his undercards at any point. He could have told Don King, I don't want her on my cards anymore. That's true. He 100% wanted me on the cards and he was actually going to come Saturday to the premiere. Oh, wow. And he wasn't able to because he was in Houston. But yeah, I'm going to be hanging out with him at his one-man show in South Florida. But still in contact. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's supportive of still like Christie's champs, the things that we're doing with domestic violence awareness. He's supportive. Wow. I'm lucky I was in the right place at the right time and took advantage of a good opportunity. Absolutely. You know, Sydney, for you, because we had Donald Gleeson on earlier this year for Echo Valley. He's obviously a phenomenal actor as well. But I'm also curious about her name association, Julianne Moore. What was that experience like? I mean, she has been a role model of mine forever. It was a dream to be able to work with her. Definitely, it was very traumatic mother-daughter relationship. But every single time we were working together, I just I wanted to pinch myself. Yeah, because it's Julianne Moore. Yeah. Would you nerd out and just be like, remember the hand that rocks the cradle? Or like, you know, I mean, do you get to nerd out? I kept like pinching myself because like, is this real? I'd call my mom afterwards and tell her about my day. I was so excited. Oh, my God. It's so good. Ben, how about for you? Woody Harrelson, The Messenger, an all time great film. Like Woody, you know, there's such a larger than life persona around Woody. What is your sort of association with him? I love Julianne Moore, too. Who doesn't, though? She's amazing. Yeah, Woody. I think we've done two or three films. He's I call him a brother. He's he I mean, he should be on I want to say wooden nickels, but he should be on some form of currency for American cinema. Yeah, he's he's better in person. He's one of my favorite humans. He's a wild intellect and a joy and a creative. And I adore him. Which like, can you walk around with Woody Harrelson? Because you've been in so many roles over time that you're like a bit of a chameleon. But like Woody stands out, I feel like he's got a vibe. Yeah, we call it the Woody River. So when you're with Woody, you're on the Woody River. And wherever the river goes and you're hanging with Woody, it goes. And it's it's it never disappoints. That's a good one. OK, I guess, you know, Katie, you actually kind of share this with Sidney, but Glenn Powell, because we've got The Running Man coming up, which I'm like foaming at the mouth to see. Yeah, he's the worst. Ah, deep down. Smells weird. No, he's great. Yeah. Yeah, a team player. I did Twisters with him. I was writing Twisters, too. Yeah. And it was kind of like right away. We just got the cast. You know, we're away on location. We don't know where we are or anything. Not a lot to do in Oklahoma, necessarily. So he would just kind of start getting the cast together to go to big events, dinners, whatever. And we kind of built a camaraderie. And I have friends from that that I hang out with kind of regularly now, which isn't always the case because people are so busy or whatever. So I loved that energy immediately. It just knocking off numbers in the call sheet. You know, and then Running Man was so fun. I'm really excited about it. It's just a high octane, absolute insanity. Very silly. Glenn had to do a lot of work. I once again got to swoop in and play a fun character and then walk out. Glenn stole her from us. She was with us and then she got stolen away by him. Yeah. Did he text you like, I've got her, I'm taking her? That's so rude. I didn't want to tell him I was on it, but Edgar ruined the surprise. Oh, wow. Yeah. I just wanted to show up and pretend I was a stalker or something. Which would have been a good prank. We're getting into like George Clooney territory. But how about like, what is your reaction to Glenn Powell? Because obviously you guys had like a really great working relationship, huge, successful rom-com. I assume you're a viewer of The Hills because of the use of Unwritten. Is that possible? Did you? I've actually never seen The Hills. Oh, my God. Really? No. I figured as an executive producer, you shoehorned Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield. No, I have to give that to Will. Oh, that's all Will. All Will. Will's been close with Natasha and he kind of sprung that song onto Glenn and I. And we would have to sing it almost every single scene set up. And we slowly warmed ourselves up to it. But Glenn and I both were kind of nervous in the beginning just because I have stage fright when it comes to singing and stuff like that. Do you? Oh, yeah. Terribly. So we had to like lock in with each other and take hands and just go for it. I love that. But do you karaoke or is that too threatening to you? Oh. But, but. Well, let's go right after this. Should we go after this? I need, I need a few shots to get it going. That's fine. Yeah, I got to loosen up a little first. Wait, what's everyone's song? What's your karaoke go to? See, this is creep. Wow. OK, vocals. Yes, yes. I've only ever, I've only ever karaoke'd in Key West, though. What? That's my spot. I love that. Go bar hopping down Duval. You guys got to come. That sounds fun. Christy knows what I'm talking about. Key West, get ready. Here comes Sid. OK, wait, Ben, what's your karaoke song? Oh, it's undeniable. Neil Diamond, I am, I said. Oh my God, emotional. You can't fight those lyrics. I am the chair. He's talking to a chair. And nobody answered. It's glorious. My God. OK, David, for name association, because you mentioned earlier, Joel Edgerton, you guys have done at this point a prolific amount of work together. I'm assuming, Bestie, you know, tell me sort of your relationship with Joel. I love him to bits and will probably till one of us dies. Yeah, I've known him for almost 20 years or 20 years. We've done lots of things together. He lives in Sydney. When he's at home, he lives five minutes walk from my house. And yeah, he's just a good dude. You know, he's he and his wife, Christine, have twins that had a couple of years ago. And I just knew when that happened that he was. Those kids were they'd won the kind of dad lotto, you know, because he was going to be the most fun, most doting, solid presence in their lives. And it's turned out to be true. Yeah. Yeah, it's just like a really great human. Here's the thing as well. When you're on set, because he's a director as well, you know, he he when we were doing The King, there were days on that movie that were really tough. You can just say he's just clocking it. There'd be days where he would just come over to me and go, is there anything you need? Do you need me to do anything for you? Because you could see that I was struggling or whatever. I go, oh, man, that's it. He's a match. Yeah, he's great. Well, also, I'm curious about like Ben Mendelsohn, too, who you worked with on The Kingdom and like, you know, phenomenal actor. But I also feel like he was the first to say to me, like when I came to America, like Naomi Watts was waiting for me. Like there's this like Australian caravan that picks up everybody from the airport and you all like sleep on Nicole Kidman's couch. Is that a fair like did you arrive over and everyone was waiting for you? It used to be like that. It used to be that you would people would hang in Australia, do I mean, it's one of the things that was great about Animal Kingdom was it was full of people who were living real lives. You know, it's like, I mean, Ben, Ben Mendelsohn, Sullivan Stapleton, Joel, everyone. I mean, Joel had a pretty established career by that point. You know, some of them were like working on building sites, but they were actors and they were really good at it. And you could feel the dirt under their fingernails. And then there used to be a rite of passage that you would achieve something at home and then come over here and have a shot of the title. And now it feels a little bit like kids kind of, you know, they leave school and get a fancy haircut and just get straight on the plane. Oh, my God. Right to America. But, you know, and I don't know. It's like they don't necessarily have that life experience that I think was there was a period there where I think the reason Australian actors were succeeding is because they came over with real life experience. You know, they weren't just hanging out in the gym all day. Right. And I think it's true. I mean, there's a bunch of really good new ones, but I don't know. The Internet's ruined everything because now I don't know who's getting him. But it's like we're going to spiral now. Yeah, go off spiral. Well, it's just, you know, let's change the industry so much. You know, of course it has. I'm regularly being told, you know, this person is incredibly meaningful. And I'm like, I've never heard of them before. Right. It's this, you know, that we the whole culture has been so wildly fragmented that I actually used to be able to clock who was climbing the ladder. Now there is no one ladder. Right, like what is the ladder? A thousand ladders. Yeah. And sorry, I meant Animal Kingdom. My brain is farting. But I also just because you're wearing a Robert Pattinson T-shirt, we can get a zoom in on that really briefly. I mean, the Rover, phenomenal. But like, you know, tell me about, yeah, just, you know, being a literal billboard for your boy. I've had this T-shirt for a while, but I've never really worn it before. I just thought today was the day. Today was the day to unveil it. I love Rob. I have so much respect for that guy. You know, when we did the Rover together, it was pretty much, I think Cosmopolis and the Rover were the two things he did straight out of Twilight. Yeah. He knew that he had like a road ahead of him. He wasn't just going to take the offers and they were there to just slide sideways and do some superhero thing, whatever. He went, no, no, I'm going to need to rebuild. And it's one thing to say that. I mean, he did the rebuilding, but in order to do that properly, you've got to know what risks you're taking. And he has, he knows he's, he, he's unbelievably smart, has great taste. And he just knew the stepping stones he wanted to take to rebuild. And he did it. You know, I, it's so admirable and he's really good. I love him. He's such a great dude. Yeah, totally. We're talking to the cast and director and co-writer behind the film, Christy, which is in theaters on Friday, November 7th. And I have Sydney Sweeney and the real Christy Martin here and Ben Foster and Katie O'Brien and David Michaud, who is the director and co-writer of the film. And I mean, even as David was describing that, I mean, I was a little bit like Sydney, that sounds like your career in many ways. And you've taken such ownership, I think, in such a brilliant way by making sure that you are a producer as well. Like a lot of young people don't necessarily, I think maybe more common now, but to make sure that you also have the full reins to your career. And was that your own undertaking? Was that suggested to you as you were starting to really take on more roles? Like, how was it that you decided that that was something deeply important for you to keep control in a way? No, I always knew that I wanted to be more involved in the industry. It was actually during COVID, I mean, I love to read books. I'm an avid book reader and I was reading tons of books and I started researching to see if they'd been developed into anything. And I called my team and I was like, you know what, I want to start trying to chase IP and create my own projects because I'm huge fans of these stories and I want to help bring them to the screen. So that's kind of where it started. And I love to learn. It's one of my favorite things. I love to challenge myself. I love to discover and learn new things. And this kind of allows me to do so on like a really huge scale. And I get to sit at the table. I get to be a part of the conversations. I get to be a part of the brainstorming and I get to learn. Well, and tell me if this story is sort of accurate, because I remember this from, you know, when Immaculate first came out and the director had said that like you had really championed that because you had initially auditioned for it like nearly a decade prior and it didn't come through and you were like, I'm getting it. Yeah, so it's incredible. What a badass move, Sydney. Thank you. I actually, so I auditioned for Immaculate when I was like 15 years old. I was like 15, 16 years old. They never made it and I couldn't stop thinking of the script. And it was like 10 years later, not even, yeah, eight years later, I started thinking about it like every day. And I discovered that it went into turnaround and the script was available to pull out. And so I decided I was just going to make it myself. And so it was the same script that you made. You didn't redevelop it, you tweaked it. I mean, we tweaked it because it was a high schooler and I needed to make her older. So I pulled it out. I brought on Black Bear, who actually financed this movie as well. Yeah, so they financed that for me. And I hired Michael to direct, who directed me in Everything Sucks and Voyeurs. And I knew that we had a really great collaborative relationship and he wasn't just going to like take my baby from me. He'd want to work together hand in hand on it. And that's kind of how it all came together. Yeah. Was that also sort of the first shift where you saw people like kind of projecting onto sexuality within that film? Because I remember seeing it and thinking like this is brilliant and the right amount of scary and the right amount of like sort of like right sexualizing a nun because she was pregnant with, you know, a demon baby. That's all like makes sense. But, you know, I remember like a review being like, she's constantly like in a wet white shirt. Like this is ridiculous. And I was like, did you see the movie? Yeah, it was one of those things where I was like, what movie are you watching? But was it the first time you sort of saw like there's a different reaction to me based on these characters? Because it's a projection. I've been dealing with it since early euphoria. So I'm kind of very used to it at this point. Do you think it was because of euphoria that then every role then became she's being sexualized or? Yeah, I think that Cassie was just such a big pop culture type character with euphoria and the zeitgeist of the generation. And it was the amount of me. Yeah. And it was honest. It was the first big thing for me that people saw me. And I think that it's difficult for people to disassociate actors sometimes from their roles. And especially a character like that, that just kind of, I mean, my brother started just communicating with me through my own memes. So it just becomes like a different type of dynamic. But I mean, every character that I did after that was challenging the viewer's perception of the type of characters that I do play. I mean, Reality, Christy, Americana, Eden, all of them. So I think that it's just there's just growing pains. Yeah, absolutely. No, you're doing it great. But did you have to do a refresher before you started filming euphoria again? Because I honestly just did like a quick read through on Wikipedia because I was like, how did that end? It was a couple of years ago. Were you ready to step back on set? I was. I mean, it's home to me. I've been doing it since I was 20. I was 20 years old when I did the pilot. And then 21, we filmed the first season. So it's kind of like a like a homecoming. It's the same crew and most of the same cast. So I always feel at home whenever I get to go there. And then Cassie is just a fun, crazy, wild character. And as an actor, it's a treat being able to play someone with so much personality and so much emotions. Like she she wears everything on her sleeve. There's no holding back. Constantly screaming. So it was it was it was really cool coming back. I've never played a character for so long before. For so long. Yeah. No, it's wild. We're very excited to see what ends up happening. I mean, is there a haircut because of this? No. Oh, no. This is just. I actually, you guys, I wrap euphoria on Sunday. What? So wait, this comes out next. I wrapped euphoria. You did? Wow. So this is just a free for all haircut right now? That's so cool. I love it. So now. But do you guys, when you're all together, do you get to nerd out about each other's work? Because, like, this is such a heavy set that you were on. At the end of the day, would you be like, well, actually, euphoria is pretty heavy, too. Like, go back. What would you guys do to kind of like low key? Were you guys a cast that kind of spent time together? Like, I assume maybe Ben Foster and Sidney Sweeney guys actually spent time apart. I can't imagine you like, I don't know, watching Housewives together after a long shoot. You know, like what was like decompressing? I can say that we to decompress, we didn't all just stand around talking about each other's work. Yeah, I would just cover you with questions. I had arts and crafts in my trailer. You did? That's fun. Katie, what would you do? I wasn't there that often. I, when we were filming, we were fighting. Yeah, when we were filming, it's like heavy days when you're there. I did try. One day I invited you out to a movie, but you were out of town. Well, I texted Kaylee to see if both of you guys want to go. Were we both out of town? You were both out of town. Where were we? I have no idea. I don't even know where we were. It's none of my business. But that's, that's also how I see a lot of things. Like, a lot of things are none of my business. So I don't, I don't often ask or prod or anything. I wouldn't have taken you. Yeah, but no, it was the substance. And then it was like, one of like, I was one of like five people in the theater in Charlotte. And I walked out and this lady was on a date. And I think at one point we were all just there to like support each other. Me and all nine random people. And I walked out and this girl was on a date and she goes, now I got to go to church tomorrow because I saw that movie. So I then I told you I was kind of glad you didn't come because I didn't know that it was going to be like 20 minutes of vomit in the end. I was like that. I know, but you were not in town, I promise you. Or you were not, you were busy or something, you were gone. I didn't have Ben's number. I didn't have Christy's number. David, I assume would be busy and didn't want to deal with me. Can you raise the energy though? I can tell the vibe shifts when she's on set. No, I just was like, I just kept to myself. So I just worked out and then I left. That's what I would do. I would go home at the end of the day and have one beer. And when I'm shooting, I allow myself one cigarette. And then, and I didn't go home feeling, I mean, I can't speak for these guys, but yes, there's a lot of heavy stuff in the movie, but I'm a very firm believer in the fact that even when you're shooting heavy stuff, the work needs to feel like play. And so I don't think, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, guys, but I don't think the set felt overly heavy at all. No, we were laughing all the time. We're having a really good time. Eating Smuckers and laughing a lot. A lot of Smuckers. No, get to know about the Smuckers. I got you in the Smuckers. He never had a Smuckers before. Oh my God. Why would I? How dare you? I don't know why everyone calls it Uncrustables, but I call it Smuckers. Called Uncrustables. Yeah. Where did I get? I think they copyrighted that name. I think they're like official. Yeah, Smuckers. It's like tissue Kleenex. Yeah. Spandex. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Christy out this Friday. Exactly. We're wrapping it up. Sponsored by Uncrustables. Sydney Sweeney, Christy Martin, Ben Foster, Katie O'Brien, David Michaud. The film Christy in theaters on Friday, November 7th. A reminder that there is many ways that you can seek help. The National Domestic Violence Hotline, which is 1-800-799-7233. Or you can go to thehotline.org. It's toll-free, confidential, and it is available 24-7, more than 170 languages. There's such a call to how important this issue is within the film. Thank you for your advocacy that you do so deeply and daily. Thank you all for being here. The film Christy is in theaters on Friday, November 7th. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.