Dan Barnes chats with Christy director David Michôd…
Australian director David Michôd – known for films such as Animal Kingdom, The Rover, War Machine and The King – ventures into new territory with this Christy Martin biopic, the Sydney Sweeney-led dramatisation of the boxer’s tragic life story.
David chatted to us about his inspiration for the film, his approach to its characters, and working with Sweeney, Ben Foster and, of course, Christy Martin herself, in our exclusive interview that you can read below…
Christy Martin, as a subject matter, is unlike any other character you’ve looked at before in your films. So I wondered what it was about her as a person that appealed to you as a storyteller, and how the project came about?
When I saw Laura Brownson’s documentary on Netflix (Untold: Deal with the Devil, 2021), I was immediately drawn to the idea of making a film that might allow me to unpick how these kinds of coercive-control relationships function. I was really drawn to wanting to understand how a woman as strong and powerful as Christy Martin might find herself trapped in a relationship like this for 20 years.
But it was also the fact that Christy was such a strong, powerful, fiery, foul-mouthed woman that made her an exciting prospect to me. I had been vaguely keeping my eye open for a movie about a woman, rather than another movie about a dude. So when Christy presented herself, I was like, ‘okay, this is the one.’ She’s a big personality, and a multi-faceted one. Obviously tough, but strangely vulnerable and fragile, and also kind. All the ingredients for a really great character.
In many ways, it isn’t really a boxing movie. Christy happens to be a boxer but, as you’ve touched on, the film is actually about this abusive relationship that she’s trapped in. I found the gradual worsening of Jim’s behaviour fascinating, and Ben Foster is incredible in the role. I wanted to ask how you both approached that character. Because he’s so cruel, and I can’t imagine how hard it was to still keep him feeling like a human being, rather than a caricature.
Our primary mission was to make sure that he wasn’t simply a monster, but that he was a broken man who does monstrous things. So many of these abusive men are themselves from deeply traumatic childhoods, suffering from quite profound abandonment issues; men who experience their masculinity in the form of exercising control over another person, then experiencing the loss of that control as a catastrophic form of annihilation.
It feels like their world is imploding when those relationships start to break down, which is why women are so often in the greatest danger when a relationship is in its final stages. Right when it might look like they have one foot out the door is when they’re in their greatest peril. So it was very important to Ben and I that when that catastrophic breakdown in the relationship happens, Jim is kind of left bereft. He’s so psychologically at sea that he has a psychotic break.
But prior to all of that, it was also very important to us that you understand why she might be with him. He was extremely good at gaslighting Christy into thinking that any success that might lay ahead for her was dependent on him. And given how stressful her job was, he needed to be capable of comforting her when she needed it.
So yes, he did need to have more than one dimension. He needed to be a fully-rounded human being. I knew that Ben would get that, and that he would dig in and find for himself how to make that true.
Sydney Sweeney is fantastic in the film, and it’s such a huge transformation for her. I know she also worked as a producer. Could you tell me a little about how she came to the project? Did you cast her, or was it a bit of a passion project for her?
We cast her. Mirrah (Foulkes, co-screenwriter) and I had written the script already – working with Kerry Kohansky-Roberts, our producer at Anonymous Content – and we were trying to figure out a way to get the movie financed, knowing that it wasn’t going to be easy. Two things happened. One was that a friend pointed me in the direction of Tina Satter’s film, Reality (2023). Sydney’s performance in that film just knocked my socks off. That puts to bed any doubts anyone has about whether or not she’s the real deal.
And the other thing was that another friend said to me, ‘you do know she used to train and compete as an MMA fighter when she was younger?’ That for me was very reassuring, because I at least knew that she would be prepared for the work that we would ask of her. So we sent her the script, and 24 hours later I was on a Zoom call with her. And it was clear to me that she wanted in, and that she could do the work.
One thing I really appreciated was how Christy’s manner changes. In those early fights, she’s very sweet and innocent and can’t believe her luck, but that innocence and optimism gradually gets taken from her over the course of the film. And it’s not just her husband. The film also touches on Christy’s relationship her parents, and how abusive her mother can be. I thought Merritt Wever was so convincing in that role. What was it like working with her?
Merritt’s a very cerebral actor. She’s a thinker, so she wanted to talk about why I wanted her to play the character before she even agreed to do it. She wanted to know what I would be asking of her, and then try and figure out whether or not she thought she was capable. Once we’d had those earlier conversations, though, she turned up to set pretty much fully-formed.
It was just about nudging in this direction or that direction, which for me is what I always want to be doing as a director. I don’t want to have to reinvent an actor’s wheel on set. I want to know that all I’m really needing to do is nudge in pretty basic brushstrokes.
And lastly, I wondered if you could explain a little about Christy Martin’s own involvement in the film?
Well, she was very involved in as much as she was around a lot. But Mirrah and I were left to write by ourselves. Mirrah went and spent a week with Christy in Florida and just got to know her, picked her brain, went to the places, saw the things. But we were then left to write the script, and for us there were a number of quite significant milestones we needed to pass. The first one was meeting her and trying to gauge whether or not this was a relationship that could work for each of us. The next was showing her a script once we had one. Nerve-wracking, but she was incredibly supportive. She didn’t really have any notes, just a handful of technical boxing-related things.
And then we were all a little bit nervous about what Christy’s presence around the production might mean for everyone. I had a pretty good feeling that she was going to be an asset. Just a beautiful champion of all of us, as opposed to wanting to control the project – which she would be justified in wanting to do. I know if someone was making a movie about me, I’d want to control it!
But it became really apparent to all of us, very quickly, that she was just excited this was happening. The whole crew knew her story, knew what had happened to her, and knew what an unbelievable human she is just because she managed to survive this stuff. So everyone was there to fight the good fight. Christy could feel that, so she just wanted to be around it.
We would ask her regularly ‘did this happen or did that happen’ and she’d always be ready and willing to answer those questions, but never in a micro-managing way. And that stayed true right through the production. When we showed her a cut of the film, we were nervous all over again, and again she had no notes. She was just so grateful that we cared as much as we did.
SEE ALSO: It’s A Life Story: Christy Martin – Exclusive Interview
Many thanks to David Michôd for taking the time for this interview.
Dan Barnes
