Sydney Sweeney has no fear of acting in the nude.
“I don’t get nervous,” the 27-year-old actress recently told W Magazine.
“I think that the female body is a very powerful thing. And I’m telling my character’s story, so I owe it to them to tell it well and to do what needs to be done.”
Sweeney appeared nude in both the first season of “Euphoria” and in the 2021 thriller “The Voyeurs.”
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While Sweeney has been outspoken about her choice to film nude and how it relates to female empowerment, she claimed nobody took her seriously in “Euphoria” because she “got naked.”
“With ‘The White Lotus,’ I felt like people were finally recognizing the hard work I’ve been doing. This is something that has bothered me for a while,” Sweeney told The Independent in 2022.
“I’m very proud of my work in ‘Euphoria.’ I thought it was a great performance. But no one talks about it because I got naked. I do ‘The White Lotus’ and all of a sudden critics are paying attention. I was like, ‘Did you not see that in ‘Euphoria?’ Did you not see that in ’The Handmaid’s Tale’?”
Sweeney further explained at the time that she believes there is “a stigma against actresses who get naked on screen.”
“When a guy has a sex scene or shows his body, he still wins awards and gets praise. But the moment a girl does it, it’s completely different,” she said.
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Sweeney has proven her commitment to telling a character’s story, even gaining 30 pounds for her role as Christy Martin in an upcoming biopic.
“I loved it. I came onboard to play Christy, and I had about three and a half months of training,” Sweeney explained to W magazine. “I started eating. I weight-trained in the morning for an hour, kickboxed midday for about two hours, and then weight-trained again at night for an hour.”
“My body was completely different,” she added. “I didn’t fit in any of my clothes. I’m usually a size 23 in jeans, and I was wearing a size 27. My boobs got bigger. And my butt got huge. It was crazy! I was like, Oh my god. But it was amazing: I was so strong, like crazy strong.”
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Sweeney’s work ethic while filming the Martin biopic was praised by the film’s co-writer and director.
“Martin put female boxing on the map in the mid-’90s,” David Michôd explained. “She was the first woman fighter on the cover of Sports Illustrated and fought on the Mike Tyson undercard. Her husband was also her trainer, and then, after her success, he tried to murder her. Our film is a wild mix of inspiring underdog sports-world story and personal saga.”
“Sydney trained her butt off to play the part,” he continued. “The beauty of Sydney is that she turned up to work every day with her tail wagging, ready to go. No matter how tough it was, she was like a ray of sunshine.”
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Sweeney had to drop the weight she gained for the Martin biopic in just seven weeks as “Euphoria” finally picked up filming for the highly-anticipated season three.
“I hadn’t ever seen her in ‘Euphoria,’” Michôd told the outlet. “I FaceTimed with her the other day when Sydney was in the makeup truck for the show, and I was stunned by the change in her appearance.”
“I had only seen her as an adorable, tough moppet with late-’80s hair, ready to box,” he explained. “Sydney was happiest when she was in the ring punching and being punched. It was shocking to see her being so glamorous.”
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Sweeney addressed negative comments she had received about her appearance while filming the Martin story head-on via social media. In December 2024, Sweeney posted a video montage on Instagram featuring a number of cruel comments about her look for the film.
“Nothing to see here other than an average chunky Yankee girl,” one user had written.
“Too pale,” another wrote. “And she needs to lose a few pounds around the middle.”
The end of Sweeney’s video featured the actress working out in the gym, lifting heavy weights and training in a boxing ring. A sign read, “Just Don’t Quit.”
