{"id":1375,"date":"2025-09-08T00:50:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T00:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/1375\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T00:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T00:50:08","slug":"sydney-sweeney-drops-by-our-tiff-video-studio-plus-todays-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/1375\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney Sweeney drops by our TIFF video studio, plus today’s picks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TORONTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Welcome to a special daily edition of the Envelope at TIFF, a newsletter collecting the latest developments out of Canada\u2019s annual film showcase. Sign up here<\/a> to get it in your inbox.<\/p>\n

Our photo gallery\u2019s latest<\/a> includes Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Richard Linklater and more.<\/p>\n

But click through for our video interviews, including Mark Olsen\u2019s sit-down with Sydney Sweeney<\/a> and the crew of her boxing movie \u201cChristy,\u201d which required a total transformation.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Sydney Sweeney in \u201cChristy,\u201d a portrait of boxing champ Christy Martin, having its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.<\/p>\n

(Allie Fredericks \/ TIFF)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a taste of their exchange:<\/p>\n

Sydney, people are already really talking about the physical transformation you make in the movie, the training that you did. What was it about the role that made it seem like you wanted to make that kind of commitment?<\/p>\n

Sydney Sweeney: I mean, I couldn\u2019t let Christy down, and I also love transforming for characters. That\u2019s the whole reason of being an actor, is to be something different from yourself and to challenge ourselves.<\/p>\n

So I had like two months of training. I built gyms in my house and I had a boxing trainer, I had a weight trainer, I had a nutritionist and would work out and train every single day.<\/p>\n

And it was amazing. I loved it. Being able to completely lose yourself for somebody else and then have that person there next to your side. It was transformative.<\/p>\n

Katy O\u2019Brian, co-star: It was exhausting watching her do it.<\/p>\n

Ben Foster, co-star: And in tribute to Syd, we\u2019d shoot a 12-hour day that was dense, we\u2019ll say, that would be a gentle word. She would then go train and choreograph the fights that she would do back-to-back after, one after another. <\/p>\n

Sweeney: I\u2019d be put in the middle of a ring and I\u2019d have like nine girls and they would just drill me with all the different fights, one after the other for like two hours after we would wrap.<\/p>\n

Because I really wanted the choreography to match the exact fights that she had in real life. So we would watch all the footage from her fights and memorize all the combinations and then implement those into the fight.<\/p>\n

So everything you see were her actual fights. And so I\u2019d wrap, I would do that for two hours, and then I would weight train.<\/p>\n

David, there is something very unflinching about the movie. Why was it that you wanted to tell Christy\u2019s story in a way that wasn\u2019t afraid to explore these really dark and disturbing moments in her life?<\/p>\n

David Mich\u00f4d, director: In a way, the dark and disturbing was what made me want to make the movie. I had a clear sense that in this really wild and colorful story of a \u201990s boxing pioneer was actually, underneath, it was a very important story to tell about how these coercive control relationships function.<\/p>\n

And trying to wrap my brain around what keeps them functioning over, in this case, 20 years. And I knew that where Christy\u2019s story went, it was harrowing.<\/p>\n

And what the challenge for me then as a filmmaker was just to go, how do I do this being very conscious of not wanting to step into a world of representations of violence against women and all that kind of stuff, but not shying away from the horror that is very much there and is very palpable.<\/p>\n

I could see a big sprawling movie that would start almost as a kind of conventional underdog pioneering sports movie and then morph into something that was deeply moving and important.<\/p>\n

Sydney, Ben, what was it like for the two of you performing some of those darker scenes in the film and how did you keep some sense of humanity between the two of you?<\/p>\n

Sweeney: There were so many conversations around a lot of those moments, and both Ben and I, we don\u2019t like to rehearse and we kind of just want to feel it. And I think we both became very connected to who we were portraying and \u2014<\/p>\n

Foster: Listening.<\/p>\n

Sweeney: We just listened<\/p>\n

Foster: And Dave created a space where we could do that. And we would block it, we did a lot of talk privately, and then we would come in and jam and nudge. But the truth is Dave is quality control and would fine-tune moments.<\/p>\n

The day\u2019s buzziest premieres\u2018EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert\u2019 \"A <\/p>\n

Elvis Presley performing live, as seen in Baz Luhrmann\u2019s archival concert movie \u201cEPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert.\u201d<\/p>\n

(TIFF)<\/p>\n

How deep did Baz Lurhmann go researching his 2022 movie \u201cElvis\u201d<\/a>? Forty stories. That\u2019s the depth of the Kansas salt mine where Warner Bros. had stored 59 hours of unseen recordings from Elvis Presley\u2019s seven-year stint in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Lurhmann studied it for his Oscar-nominated biopic, which mourned Presley as an artist in a cage and wondered who the curious, music-loving boy from Tupelo might have become if Col. Parker had let him, say, visit an ashram with the Beatles.<\/p>\n

This time, the \u201cMoulin Rouge!\u201d director has said that he wants to use found footage to \u201clet Elvis sing and tell his story\u201d \u2014 as in, Lurhmann\u2019s own spectacular sensibilities will cede center stage to Presley himself, who can still wow a crowd even during a late-career moment when his own fans feared he had more jumpsuits than ambition.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll definitely be at the premiere to pay my respects to the King. \u2014 Amy Nicholson<\/p>\n

\u2018Hamnet\u2019 \"A <\/p>\n

Jessie Buckley, center, in director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao\u2019s \u201cHamnet.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Agata Grzybowska \/ Focus Features)<\/p>\n

You\u2019re going to be hearing a lot of Oscar buzz in the coming months about various movies, along with people insisting that \u2014 seriously \u2014 this is the one you need to see. \u201cHamnet\u201d is, far and away, that film, for three specific reasons.<\/p>\n

First, Paul Mescal has now done three masterful turns, between this, \u201cAftersun\u201d<\/a> and \u201cAll of Us Strangers\u201d<\/a> confirming what a truly special talent he is. Mescal and the \u201cHamnet\u201d crew came through our TIFF studio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Clockwise from right: Paul Mescal, Noah Jupe, Jacobi Jupe, director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao, Jessie Buckley and Emily Watson, photographed in the Los Angeles Times Studios at RBC House during the Toronto International Film Festival.<\/p>\n

(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Second, I needed director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao to rebound after the mess that was \u201cEternals\u201d to the confidence she displayed on \u201cNomadland\u201d<\/a> \u2014 and she\u2019s done exactly that. Read our Telluride interview with her.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Finally, Jessie Buckley has uncorked one of the year\u2019s most impressive turns: a grief-stricken plunge that elevates her to the level of Casey Affleck in \u201cManchester by the Sea.\u201d<\/a> Do not be surprised if, like Affleck, she goes all the way. \u2014 Joshua Rothkopf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Welcome to a special daily edition of the Envelope at TIFF, a newsletter collecting the latest developments out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2021,2027,2019,2020,2022,2029,1546,146,2025,2026,85,46,2023,1669,789,147,2024,2028],"class_list":["post-1375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-baz-lurhmann","tag-ben-foster","tag-boxing-movie","tag-christy","tag-crew-drop","tag-director","tag-elvis","tag-entertainment","tag-fight","tag-hour","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-kind","tag-lot","tag-story","tag-sydney-sweeney","tag-tiff-video-studio","tag-way"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}