In crafting Christy, the biopic of boxer Christy Salters Martin that just premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, director David Michôd and his co-writer Mirrah Foulkes wanted to hew as close to the real-life story as possible.
“It was important to us to try and stick as close to historical accuracy as we could,” Foulkes says in a joint video interview with Michôd before the Toronto screening.
Martin’s story is indeed pretty remarkable without embellishment. The West Virginia native became the face of female boxing in the mid-1990s, covering Sports Illustrated and helping to bring attention and legitimacy to the sport. But her athletic triumph was tragically dampened by years of abuse at the hands of her husband and coach Jim Martin, who in 2010 attempted to murder her, stabbing her many times, slicing the flesh off the bone from her leg, and shooting her. After the attack, Martin reportedly told Jim, “Motherf-cker, you cannot kill me.” Jim was eventually sentenced to 25 years in prison, where he died last year.
On screen, Sydney Sweeney plays the title role in a physically transformative performance for the much talked-about actor. She bulks up to portray a woman who is ferocious in the ring, but deeply closeted in her personal life, having been threatened into hiding her personal desires. It’s a role that could win Sweeney awards attention.
It’s also one that Martin herself, now 57, had a large role in shaping.
“I had never made a movie like this before where I was making a biopic, essentially, about a real person who was there and available for consultation,” Michôd explains.
Michôd had also largely focused on stories about very different subjects—”idiot dudes,” as he puts it. He broke out with the 2010 crime drama Animal Kingdom before projects like The King, starring Timothée Chalamet as Henry V. Because he was in the middle of another project when it was time to start writing Christy, which will have a nationwide theatrical release on Nov. 7, he had Foulkes, who is also his wife, take over on developing the movie.
Foulkes met with Martin first over Zoom and then visited her and her wife (and former competitor) Lisa Holewyne in Florida. Martin still works in the boxing industry, so she took Foulkes to gyms and fights.
“A lot of that was sort of trust building with Christy to begin with, building up a relationship,” Foulkes says. “It was really important to us that she trusted us and that she felt involved and engaged.”
Foulkes perceived that Martin, whose story was previously told in a 2021 installment of Netflix’s Untold documentary anthology series, initially had a guard up, given her complicated, difficult life.
“She had this idea that we were going to Hollywood-ize her life and she was sort of steeling herself for that,” Foulkes says. It helped in a way that Michôd and Foulkes are Australian, meaning they were removed from the entertainment world she feared was going to potentially gloss over her story.
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But the filmmakers gained Martin’s trust so much that there were details she allowed them to use that haven’t been widely reported elsewhere. For instance, when the Martins were broke, before Christy gained the attention of legendary boxing promoter Don King, Jim, played on screen in a terrifying performance by Ben Foster, would take her to motel rooms to spar with men who would pay for the opportunity. That’s depicted in a disturbing, if somewhat inscrutable, scene. “There were kind of sexual undertones to that,” Foulkes says.
Foulkes and Michôd did have to make some small changes to Martin’s story. They turned two past girlfriends that Martin had into a composite character (Jess Gabor), a lover from Christy’s youth who reenters her life just before Jim’s attempt to murder her, which serves as a trigger for Jim.
Still, their commitment to verisimilitude meant that they frequently consulted Martin, who was on set for a third of the shoot along with her emotional support dog Champ. (Champ looks almost identical to the Pomeranian that plays Christy’s on-screen pet. She has a preference for that breed.)
“She was really useful when we needed her and just really relaxed,” Foulkes says of Martin.
Michôd says that Sweeney was initially tentative about Martin’s involvement, wanting to protect her own creative space, but opened up upon realizing that Martin wasn’t going to try and control her performance.
“Soon as Sydney and Christy met properly, you could see this bond form very quickly,” Michôd adds.
Foster, however, was another story. His recreation of the older, controlling Jim, with a grotesque combover, was so spot-on that those who had interacted with the real person didn’t want to be near him. “He freaked people out on set,” Michôd says. “Anyone who knew Christy and had known her for a long time really didn’t want to be anywhere near him.”
Foulkes and Michôd were very nervous to show Martin the final product, and were relieved when she called them immediately to express her approval.
“Christy doesn’t bullsh-t you,” Foulkes says. “You can tell when she likes something and she doesn’t. We were just so relieved by her response.”
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