Hollywood actress Sydney Sweeney spent months training with boxing and weight coaches, sparring alongside nine other women in the ring to prepare for her upcoming film Christy, she revealed in a recent interview.

“I love transforming for characters. Getting Christy right was so important. I had months of training. I had a boxing trainer, a weight trainer and in the middle of the ring, I’d have nine girls and they would just drill me with all of the different fights, one after the other for two hours,” the 28-year-old actress said.

The real-life Christy Martin heaped praise on Sweeney and shared, “I think that’s why Sydney Sweeney is doing such an awesome job, because she got to be this totally different person that none of you expected.”

“She wasn’t the beautiful, sexy Sydney. She was the tough, rugged Christy in this movie. It was a 360 degree transformation. She walked like me. She talked like me. She even had my mannerisms,” she added.

“Christy, you are absolutely incredible, and I’m so honoured. You’re so inspirational and so being able to have her by my side during this process was a dream,” Sweeney said, getting emotional on stage. She signed off by saying, “Getting to transform into Christy was the role of a lifetime.”

Sweeney takes on the role of Martin, who is the first female boxer to be inducted into Nevada’s Boxing Hall of Fame and also to the International Boxing Hall of Fame. The movie will chronicle her rise in the world of boxing as a female boxer as well as the attempted murder of her by her husband back in 2010.

Produced by Black Bear Pictures, the film also stars Katy O’Brian, Ben Foster, Merritt Wever, Ethan Embry, Chad L. Coleman, Tony Cavalero and Jess Gabor. It is directed by David Michôd, known for the 2019 drama The King starring Timothee Chalamet.

The upcoming film is slated to hit theatres on November 7.