CHRISTY Star Sydney Sweeney Covers GQ’s ‘Men of the Year’ Issue

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GQ revealed its second Men of the Year cover featuring the “Obsession of the Year,” Sydney Sweeney.

Following the controversy surrounding her “good jeans” American Eagle ad, Sweeney addresses the public reaction to the campaign, and dives into her romantic life, politics preserving privacy as a Hollywood starlet, and the transformation she underwent to play female boxer Christy Martin in the upcoming biopic, CHRISTY.

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On getting swept up in political conversations…

“I’ve always believed that I’m not here to tell people what to think. I’m just here to kind of open their eyes to different ideas. That’s why I gravitate towards characters and stories that are complicated and are maybe morally questionable, and characters that are—on the page—hard to like, but then you find the humanity underneath them.”

On identifying with boxer Christy Martin, who survived domestic abuse with her manager-turned-husband…

“She is fighting a fight in her home life, and she’s 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.”

On her the state of her romantic life following the end of her engagement earlier this year…

“I’m single…I don’t think I’m looking for a man right now. What I’ve learned this year is that I have a really, really amazing group of girlfriends and I am strong and independent and that I’m going to be okay. If love finds me, love finds me. I’m a hopeless romantic, so I hope love finds me, but I’m 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’m not going to…you won’t see me jumping around a lot of places.”

How she responded to the controversy surrounding her American Eagle ad…

“I did a jean ad. I mean, the reaction definitely was a surprise, but I love jeans. All I wear are jeans. I’m literally in jeans and a T-shirt every day of my life…

I knew at the end of the day what that ad was for, and it was great jeans, it didn’t affect me one way or the other.”

On the shifting how women’s bodies are seen in Hollywood…

“I’ve always looked at a woman’s body as a very beautiful, powerful tool. I transformed my body for Christy. Being able to change my body and appearance to be able to become other characters is a challenge, but then also really amazing at the same time, that we’re capable of doing stuff like that and being able to tell stories through our body. And I’ve always looked at it that way. I’ve always looked at it as my body is another tool to tell this story.”

On becoming Christy Martin…

“I felt like I finally came to life myself through Christy. We really shaped every single single fight to match Christy’s 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.

Why Christy is such an important film for Sydney…

“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.”

GQ’s Men of the Year issue hits newsstands November 18 and the annual celebration to toast this year’s honorees takes place in Los Angeles on November 13.

[Photo Credit: Tyrell Hampton/GQ]

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