Sydney Sweeney on Filming Christy Martin Biopic with the Boxing Legend on Set

Sydney Sweeney is shedding light on her first-ever biopic, Christy, which tells the story of real-life boxing legend Christy Martin.

At the Toronto International Film Festival’s Princess of Wales Theater on Friday, Sept. 5, Sweeney, 27, had an emotional reaction to the audience’s standing ovation. She tearfully thanked the crowd and Martin, who joined the filmmakers onstage. 

“As you can tell, she’s such a special and incredible human being, and her story deserves to be told,” the Euphoria Emmy nominee told the crowd, fighting back tears. “Christy, you are absolutely incredible, and I’m so honored,” she told the former professional boxer. 

“Being able to have her by my side during this process was a dream — but then also just scary too,” she exclaimed. “Because you’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh, we’re doing this in front of her.’ ”

Calling Martin, 57, “the greatest boxer in the entire world,” Sweeney recalled the physical demands of playing the athlete. “I’m having to do hooks and hits and I’m like, ‘I hope I’m doing this right.’ But it was a dream come true as an actor, as a person, just, it was incredible.”

She added that she “trained for two or three months before I had a boxing coach. I had weight trainers, I had nutritionists, I trained three times a day every day, and then while I was filming, I trained as well.”

Sweeney’s diet, she said, consisted of chicken, peanut butter sandwiches, “a lot of milkshakes, a lot of protein shakes.” But embodying “such a powerful woman,” she said, “I felt even stronger. It was truly inspiring.”

Following its rapturous reception in Toronto, Christy will be in theaters Nov. 7. Directed by David Michôd, who co-wrote it with Katherine Fugate and Mirrah Foulkes, it’s the story of Martin’s rise in the boxing ring throughout the 1990s and her struggle with domestic abuse. 

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On the red carpet before the premiere screening, Martin told PEOPLE it was “awesome” to share such an experience with the Anyone But You star. “It was one thing to be in a Tyson fight,” she quipped. “It’s another thing to be at a premiere with Sydney Sweeney.”

In July, Black Bear Pictures shared the first official photo of Sweeney as Martin. The distributor will release Christy in theaters on Nov. 7.