How does it feel to have Christy out in the world?<\/p>\n
Christy is one of those projects and stories that, when you\u2019re making it, the crew, the cast, everyone involved, we all knew it was going to be something special. We had Christy with us on set many days, we would sometimes just cry because of how powerful the story is. Being able to share that experience with the world and to be able to show Christy\u2019s story to the world is so impactful and I\u2019m beyond honored and proud that we were able to bring this story to life.<\/p>\n
In the beginning, the film is also really fun. You\u2019ve got headgear on, you\u2019ve got a mouthguard in, you\u2019re grinning as you punch people in the face. Was it as much fun as it looked?<\/p>\n
It was so much fun. I was over the moon. I felt like I finally came to life myself through Christy. We really shaped every single single fight to match Christy\u2019s fights so all the different combos you see me doing are the actual combos from the fights. And I had the best girls to box with, because they were down to actually fight. We would do full contact, we would punch each other in the face, so a lot of those reactions are me as Christy but also just me, feeling like I couldn’t believe I did it just then.<\/p>\n
You have a background in martial arts, tell me about that.<\/p>\n
I was twelve, thirteen, and I started kickboxing and grappling. I did that until I was about 19, and then I booked Handsmaid\u2019s Tale and Euphoria and I was like, I can\u2019t fight and film at the same time, because I\u2019d come home with bruises. But I always wanted to find a story that would be able to bring that side of myself out.<\/p>\n
What did fighting give you at that time in your life?<\/p>\n
The element of surprise. I was the only girl there. It was a lot of, What is she doing here? The dads were a little upset that their sons would be fighting a girl and then I would sometimes win.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re someone who keeps a strong division between your characters and your personal self. Is that harder when you\u2019ve done this physical transformation for a character like Christy?<\/p>\n
I actually learned so much more about myself throughout the process. I am someone who I build my book for my character and I learn everything about her life so that I can fully jump in and out and throughout that process of building Christy and working with Christy and filming the movie, I started realizing, Wow I have more in common with her than I realized. That’s why this project is just very personally special to me and important. When other women watch Christy, I hope that they walk away and they might either find strength within themselves or be able to be a voice for somebody else.<\/p>\n
Can you tell me a little bit more about what you have in common with Christy?<\/p>\n
She is fighting a fight in her home life, and she\u2019s also fighting a fight in the public. And I think that, for me, I find myself in a lot of battles both in front and not in front of the world. So I definitely can relate.<\/p>\n
Christy has a story about domestic violence, and The Housemaid, which you also star in and produced, takes on domestic violence in a totally different genre. And you designed jeans for American Eagle to raise awareness about domestic violence and benefit a crisis-prevention hotline. You spent a lot of time this year working around that issue, and I wondered if it meant something to you.<\/p>\n
It does. I always speak out about something that is important to me. And for me to speak out, I use art. Through my characters in my movies, it\u2019s a way for me to be able to do my part and spread awareness in different ways through my characters. That\u2019s how I\u2019ve always learned to communicate, and it\u2019s really important.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve had a very nuanced career\u2014I\u2019m thinking of Euphoria and the film about whistleblower Reality Winner, Reality\u2014but you have become very swept up in politics. Has that surprised you?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always believed that I\u2019m not here to tell people what to think. I\u2019m just here to kind of open their eyes to different ideas. That\u2019s why I gravitate towards characters and stories that are complicated and are maybe morally questionable, and characters that are\u2014on the page\u2014hard to like, but then you find the humanity underneath them.<\/p>\n
Reading interviews with you from 2018 and 2019, when you\u2019re blowing up with roles in culturally relevant shows, you\u2019re like, I really want to be a producer. I\u2019m starting my production company. Jump-cut to today, and you\u2019re a big-deal producer. Do you feel like you\u2019ve accomplished that goal?<\/p>\n
I always feel like there\u2019s more to learn and more to achieve, so I don\u2019t know if I would say I feel like I\u2019ve accomplished it. I constantly feel like there\u2019s so much more to experience and learn and try, but I\u2019m really excited to be in this part of my career.<\/p>\n
Does producing free you up in any way as an actor?<\/p>\n
I definitely feel more involved and more aware of how the story\u2019s going to come together. When you\u2019re just the actor in a project, I always feel like it\u2019s the element of surprise. You never know what\u2019s going to happen.<\/p>\n
A big thing that happened to you this year is that you ended your engagement. You\u2019re a private person, your ex-fianc\u00e9 is a private person, so for a lot of us in the media, it was really surprising how much of a news story that was. Did your sense of your own fame change this year?<\/p>\n
No. I surround myself with a really, really strong group of people who have been in my life since I was little. And they take me out of Hollywood, take me out of this bubble and remind me what the real world is and that that\u2019s where I exist. And so the aspect and the idea of fame, it doesn\u2019t apply to my personal life. I\u2019m just Syd, and I don\u2019t run in that world.<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t feel the difference in the volume at times?<\/p>\n
If I turn on my phone, yes. If I have my phone off and I\u2019m home, no.<\/p>\n
So what is it like now being single? Are you single?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m single.<\/p>\n
Okay. You\u2019re single. You are out there now as a person who has a lot of power, I would say, and a person who people are obsessed with. And someone who I gather is really focused on their work. How does that change what you\u2019re looking for out of relationships?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think I\u2019m looking for a man right now. What I\u2019ve learned this year is that I have a really, really amazing group of girlfriends and I am strong and independent and that I\u2019m going to be okay. If love finds me, love finds me. I\u2019m a hopeless romantic, so I hope love finds me, but I\u2019m not the type of person that wants to go out all the time. And I do believe in true love and wanting to be with someone for the rest of my life. So I\u2019m not going to\u2026you won\u2019t see me jumping around a lot of places.<\/p>\n
Jumping around a lot of places like\u2014<\/p>\n
Guys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How does it feel to have Christy out in the world? Christy is one of those projects and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,569,75,4419,120220,19835,18549],"class_list":["post-261479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-culture","tag-entertainment","tag-magazine","tag-men-of-the-year","tag-onecolumn","tag-textbelowcentergridwidth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}