American actress Sydney Sweeney finished filming the boxing drama Christy, then had a seven-week break before stepping onto the gothic set of The Housemaid, scheduled for a December 19 theatrical release. During that gap, she lost more than 30 pounds through what she called a “super-clean” diet and “a lot of cardio exercise,” according to Fox News.
“When you stop working out and taking all your protein shakes, you lose muscle super fast. It’s the first thing to go before fat. So that, I dropped within two weeks,” said Sweeney, according to US Weekly. She “cut everything out completely,” ending the creatine and protein supplements that had helped her bulk up for Christy.
Cardio replaced the three daily strength sessions that had defined her previous three months. “I had to be really strict with myself,” she told People magazine. The actress added that her metabolism “works really well,” yet cautioned, “I don’t want to say this is super easy.”
The weight loss followed an equally demanding gain. To portray trailblazer Christy Martin, Sweeney ate chicken fillets, Chick-fil-A, milkshakes, and jam-filled Uncrustables, chasing them with protein shakes and creatine. She built what she called a Rocky-style gym and trained for four hours a day: “I weight-trained in the morning for an hour, kick-boxed midday for about two hours, and then weight-trained again at night for an hour,” she told W magazine. The regimen added more than 30 pounds and left her feeling “crazy strong.”
“Christy’s story is beyond important to tell. She is inspiring and an ultimate underdog,” Sweeney said during an October SiriusXM interview. The real Christy Martin, who became the most recognizable female boxer of the 1990s, called the actress a “perfectionist.”
Directed by David Michôd, Christy opened in U.S. theaters on November 7 and holds a 72-percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Although early box-office returns have been modest, “We don’t always make art for numbers, we make it for impact,” said Sweeney.
The abrupt reduction in training proved difficult. She described the pause as “a mental challenge and almost a physical withdrawal,” adding that the drop in daily exercise felt like “a strange decrease in serotonin.” Still, by the time cameras rolled on The Housemaid, she had returned to her usual sample-size wardrobe. “I can gain weight, but I can also lose it,” she said, crediting athletic habits formed in childhood.
“This might be the one and only time I challenge my body this much for a role,” she admitted. Yet she called the cycle “one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” and said embodying Christy Martin made her feel “even stronger.”
The preparation of this article relied on a news-analysis system.