Katy O’Brian on Exploring Queer Identity and Getting in the Ring with Sydney Sweeney in Boxing Biopic ‘Christy’ [Interview]

The story of Christy Martin, nee Salters, surely wasn’t an easy or straightforward one to tell, yet its difficult and all too real subject matter makes for an eye-opening experience that ultimately showcases the power of perseverance, resilience, and love. David Michôd (The King) doesn’t shy away from the hardships this world-renowned boxer, in a transformative performance by Sydney Sweeney (HBO’s Euphoria, Anyone But You), endured growing up in a shameful society with a controlling mother who denied her sexuality and then later while being abused and near-fatally attacked by her coach and husband, Jim Martin (Ben Foster, Leave No Trace), who stabbed and shot her and left her for dead. Christy alternates between detailing Martin’s rise to fame and her constant fights inside the ring and out, including meeting Lisa Holewyne as a competitor and training with her later in her career.

Holewyne, another trailblazer in women’s boxing in the 1990s and International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame inductee, becomes a key figure in Martin’s road to self-acceptance and healing. She may have a limited role in the film since its timeline ends well before her and Christy’s marriage in 2017, but her lasting and tender effect on Christy is diligently expressed through Katy O’Brian’s (Love Lies Bleeding) empathetic, sensitive performance. Her background in martial arts and bodybuilding further align with some of the film’s themes surrounding performance, including obsession and addiction, but it was her ability to interact with Holewyne and Martin firsthand that helped her create an enriched, lived-in persona.

I spoke with O’Brian about her role in the film after its premiere in Toronto and screening today as the Closing Night Film of NewFest: The New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival. Below she highlights why Christy’s journey will relate with audiences on multiple levels, especially as an underdog story and one of overcoming adversity. We may have related because of our Midwestern origins, but O’Brian’s indelible charm (even via Zoom) made me realize immediately why she’s one of Hollywood’s hottest rising stars and one never to miss.

Nick Ruhrkraut: Hi, Katy. Thank you for joining me today. I know we’re here to talk about your role in Christy, but I want to congratulate you on a phenomenal year. You’ve had Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Queens of the Dead, Christy, Maintenance Required, and soon to be The Running Man. Just an incredible year, a little bit of everything too: you’re in one of the biggest action franchises of all time, a queer zombie horror-comedy, a sports drama, a rom-com, and a thriller. What has this year meant to you and what have you learned from the craziness, I assume, of it all?

Katy O’Brian: Well, I mean, last year was a really crazy year because that’s when I was filming everything and it was like back to back to back to back. And something that really made me take into consideration was being so grateful to be working, especially when it’s a very bizarre time in the industry, a very slow time. So I was so excited to be working, and I’m always amazed what people are able to do with what they’re given.

So Mission: Impossible, even though the budget is insane, I don’t know if in lieu of that, because of that, or because Tom really likes to do practical things, they’re constantly trying to figure out how to do things practically. And you think, “Okay, well, you have all the money in the world. Theoretically, isn’t that easy?” But it’s also that they want to do it safely.

So this whole submarine gimbal situation that they had to create specifically for this setup, it’s just incredible to see the work, the effort, the time, and the energy that goes into it. It was awesome to be on a blockbuster like that where everyone was very excited about what they were doing, and they weren’t just like, “Oh, here’s another,” I don’t know, “another one. Check it off the list.” They wanted it to be even bigger and better than the last, and they were just so excited to do it, and that energy was palpable and motivating.

And then to jump from that to the lowest-budget project I’ve done probably in a long time, it was awesome. But the same amount of enthusiasm and creativity had to be present. So it was a great year of just seeing artists excel at what they’re doing and being inspired by them and learning. I just got to learn so much.

And then this year, conversely, it was almost like one of those things where I haven’t booked a single job this year. I haven’t done anything this year except promote the movies I did last year. And what I’m grateful for is it gave me time to finally go on my honeymoon after five years of marriage and finally do some fun trips and see the world and explore and kind of touch grass and get back to what I really enjoy doing when I’m not crazy busy. So it’s just a whirlwind, but it’s fun.

NR: Yeah, as it should be. And that’s great you get to experience both sides of it. Getting into Christy, you play Lisa Holewyne who, when they first meet, is Christy’s opponent in the ring. Can you talk about how talking and working with Lisa informed how you approach the role and portrayed her on screen?

KOB: Yeah. I mean, what an amazing opportunity, right? Because sometimes when you do a biopic, people aren’t around anymore or, very unfortunately, and I don’t think I would ever want to do a project like this, sometimes they don’t want the biopic to be made. So it was such an honor and a privilege to have both Lisa and Christy present, available, and eager to participate in this.

And I was very fortunate that I got to talk to her prior to going to set. And even though I had very little time to prepare, I told her I wasn’t going to get her dialect down and her accent down. She was born in Hawaii and then raised in Texas, and she has such a really cool way of speaking, and I said I wouldn’t be able to get her boxing stance down all the way because I just didn’t have the time to study her appropriately. And she right away was like, “Who cares? I’m excited that you’re playing me,” and that was the biggest honor that I could have received.

So getting to know her a little bit, she’s just very laid-back, very kind, intuitive, and fun. She was right away ready to tease me, and riff back and forth. She and Christy were very playful and it was fun to see her in her realm at a boxing gym, talking about some of the techniques that she likes to use like a left hook. It just made me just really excited that I got to portray this person.

NR: Did you get to train with her in the ring?

KOB: No, I didn’t, which is a bummer. Man, we should have set something up. But also, that would’ve been even more intimidating. The days that Lisa was on set, I don’t think I was on-screen. The fact that Sydney had Christy there watching her perform constantly, that adds another layer of pressure because they’re just watching you pretend to be them. And it’s just, oh, I can’t even imagine!

But no, unfortunately we didn’t get to. I would’ve loved a little coaching sesh or something like that, but I also, I didn’t want to put her out more than she already had.

NR: Yeah. With those personality traits you mentioned, was that something you connected with easily? Because when you and Sydney are together on-screen especially in the hospital at the end, you feel that bond, that love just by these looks between you two. So is that something that came fairly naturally to you or in a way relate to your relationship with your wife?

KOB: Yeah. One thing that Lisa mentioned was because Christy was known for her trash talk and everything back in the day, and Lisa was openly gay. She was out. And she’s like, she just didn’t care. You can’t care about that kind of stuff.

So when the script is saying how she’s throwing out all these expletives, she’s being rude or whatever, we just thought, “Lisa, would just let it go. She’d just brush it off.” Lisa is someone that cares deeply and it’s very easy to see that. It’s palpable. So I think you can still have that playfulness and that ease about you, but still want to make someone feel better and feel like there’s light at the end of the tunnel. And I think that was the goal going into it in my mind.

And when I’m talking to Sydney in that last scene, that was actually the first scene we shot together, she did seem so sad. And it’s acting, reacting. We did a little bit of improv at first. It’s not in the script, and they didn’t show it or anything, but Lisa told me some of her thoughts from when she saw the announcement on the news. So we’re just improving back and forth a little bit from that.

And then I ask if she’s ok, and Sydney gives me this look of, even though on the exterior, she seems ok, that right now, no. And it was so heartbreaking. And the thing we want to do is make sure that person is ok eventually. And it doesn’t have to be right away, but eventually. And so it was just trying to bring that out.

But yeah, I love that moment. I think it’s a really beautiful moment. It didn’t happen in real life for obvious logistic reasons, but I think they seem to really enjoy it and I think it adds a nice little touch to the end of the movie.

NR: I read that they eventually reconnected after this incident. Again, this movie is about Christy, is titled Christy, and her experiences with domestic abuse. Did Lisa and Christy, the real-life married couple now, share how their relationship developed between meeting in 2001 and getting married in 2017? And did that affect how you portrayed Lisa?

KOB: Yeah. So I think Christy was very much in that world at the time. Lisa swears nothing happened, right? And I believe her fully. When they were boxing, when they were training together, she’s like, “I had no idea. There was nothing between us.” So we wanted to make sure that in those initial scenes, there’s just nothing there. At one point, she said, “Christy swears at a party she was flirting with me, but to this day, I don’t believe her.”

There’s the wanting to take it at face value, wanting to say, “Okay, you’re happily married,” but the one thing is I know that Lisa could tell that Christy wasn’t happy. It was something that she did mention. Even though she’s so successful and is leading this field for women, you would think she’d be happy and you could just tell she wasn’t, and it was upsetting to her.

NR: One of the biggest moments for your character and their relationship is when you return as Christy’s coach, and at one point you’re talking about when you first met. Lisa says  “Good luck” to her and Christy thought she was trying to rev her up. They make it a point to mention how aggressive she is as a fighter.

I think there’s so much loaded into that with her sexuality and what’s happening at home. And I think touching on, again, how nice Lisa is of a person and laid-back and how she’s brushing that off, you emulate that by saying it so simply, too. How were you able to layer all of that together into this one moment? And I think with you saying, “Yeah, I meant good luck,” you show how you understand the power in that moment. How do you do that and work together in that scene?

KOB: It’s kind of funny because there’s debate as to how Lisa said, “Good luck,” amongst others, but for this purpose, it’s just understanding. I think a good chunk of how they portrayed Lisa in this was to show the good side of human nature and Christy’s humanity. So saying, “Good luck,” really, it needed to be genuine.

And then when Lisa confronts her about it later and says, “Do you remember what you said to me when I wished you luck?” And [Christy] says, “Yeah, good luck getting knocked out. You were messing with me.” And Lisa says, “No, I was genuinely wishing you luck,” or, “I was just wishing you luck.” And it’s like, man, not everybody is out here trying to get you, you know?

NR: Mm-hmm.

KOB: And I think right then and there, she’s just trying to say, “I was just trying to support you. I’m not the bad guy here. Everything that we just talked about, everything that I’m telling you is out of genuine concern. And it’s not about me as a competitor. It’s not about me trying to say in any way I’m better than you, or I think that you’re an idiot. It’s just out of a place of love and care and concern.”

And I think that that was very important in maybe Christy accepting her presence at the hospital later too in that aspect. But yeah, it’s just understanding where we are in the script and knowing what Christy needs to learn from that moment and what Lisa’s trying to portray. This is how I figured out how to deliver it.

NR: Another of your lines focuses on Christy’s view of the world and how people will look down on her if they find out that she is gay. You say, “Maybe they won’t laugh in your face. Maybe you just learn to expect the worst in people.” And I think queer youth experience that so much growing up, especially in some of these areas where you see with Christy’s mom in the beginning, she says to her, “what you’re doing isn’t normal.”

So I want to touch on the film’s message of self-acceptance, which can be a lifelong journey sometimes, as it’s surely an extended one for Christy. What do you want viewers to take away from this movie about how it portrays these real situations?

KOB: I think one of the big things is just find people that care about you and try to be around those people. People that don’t care about you or that are using you or trying to manipulate you, I think that should raise a lot of red flags. And sometimes it’s not always that easy to see, especially when you grow up that way and that’s what you’re surrounded by and you’re not familiar with someone that could accept you for your sexuality or just love you in general for who you are.

But I think it’s important to find those groups and find that community because there is good out there and there are people that will care about you. Hopefully, people can find that message in the film because it is also about self-love as this underdog story. Despite dominating in the ring, Christy triumphs by coming out of this pit that she was in, this horrible relationship. But it’s maybe the type of relationship she understood at the time. And I think it’s a relationship a lot of people understand with certain dynamics and upbringing.

So it’s very real and it’s very common. And it’s unfortunate that we have a world and a society where people can’t be themselves and can’t or don’t feel like they can be accepted. And I think if you have the ability to find that, seek it out.

NR: Yeah, definitely. Because at NewFest where this is showing as the closing night film, Queens of the Dead is also screening. They’re two very different queer films, but at their core are ones that are about identity and self-acceptance amongst queer people. What does that visibility in media mean to you and portraying queer characters, in these films and maybe others throughout your filmography?

KOB: You know, it’s interesting. It’s like when I had done Love Lies Bleeding, people were like, “Oh, it’s nice that you always get to portray queer characters.” And I was like, “This is the first time I’ve gotten to.” All of my other characters were very asexual. It’s just that I look like the gayest person on your screens so people assume my character’s gay, but I never explicitly got to play a queer character until Love Lies Bleeding. So that in and of itself was very exciting for me because that’s how I live my life so it felt tangible and real.

And then this year, most of the characters that I play are gay, which is a fun little change for me. And also, I think it shows that we’re taking at least gradual steps, which wasn’t available when I was a kid. We had The L Word and it was all femme women that were messy, and that was what media representation of lesbians was like when I was growing up. So I think it’s awesome to have this growing diversity of films, not just that I get to be in, but that I get to see around me with queer characters and representation.

Something that I absolutely adore about Queens of the Dead is that there’s so much representation in it, but it wasn’t necessarily intentional. We wanted to do a queer film, and these are people that you see at a nightclub in real life all the time. So we’re not like, “Oh, we have to check these boxes.” We just got to show up and be. And I just absolutely adore that, and I think it’s a very, very true queer culture piece, and I’m very excited about that.

And with Christy, it’s scary to not be able to live your truth, and I think that’s a very real story for a lot of people still. So I think even though we’d like to be able to just portray queer characters and have it not be the conflict and have it not be a big deal or an issue, there’s still… You have art that reflects what we hope the reality will be or what reality is in a positive light, and we have art that also reflects some people’s very true reality and it’s not necessarily always positive. And I don’t think we should ignore those stories either.

So I think Christy’s story is incredible, and it’s very important, and I think it’s very relatable to a lot of people.

NR: I agree. The fact that this is your first or one of your first portrayals of a real person is surprising because you always embody real characteristics whether the character is fictional or not. But that absolutely comes across in Lisa. So I want to congratulate you one more time and hope we do see you in more queer roles in the future.

KOB: Thank you. Yeah, The Running Man will be a fun one.

NR: I can’t wait.

Christy will be released by Black Bear Pictures in theaters on November 7.

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Nick Ruhrkraut

Nick Ruhrkraut is a dentist by day, avid moviegoer also by day, and night. He enjoys discussing all things Oscar related on his podcast, “Oscar Wild,” including conducting interviews with nominated talent, predicting current awards seasons, and recapping past award ceremonies and winners. In 2020, he became the only person to ever correctly predict all 24 categories for the Oscars on Gold Derby, where he is also a contributing writer and has moderated film and television talent interviews for major studios. He has also written multiple film and television critiques for AwardsWatch. You can find him on Twitter @sauerkraut27.

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