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HER face is her fortune, but Sydney Sweeney told co-stars not to hold back from punching it during her new boxing biopic.

The scenes for her role as US fighter Christy Martin may have been carefully choreographed, but they were so ferocious she suffered a bloodied nose and concussion.

The 28-year-old actress said: “The girls and all the fights you see are real. When I walked in and I met with everyone, I said, ‘I want you to hit me. And I want you to hit me hard. And can I hit you?’.

“So when you watch all those fights, we’re actually hitting each other. We were knocking each other out, we were getting bloody noses. I got concussion. We were actually fighting.”

Sydney added of co-star Katy O’Brian, who plays ring rival Lisa Holewyne: “Katy is a badass. I mean, she is strong.

“Katy’s only request was, ‘Please don’t break my nose’.”

Sydney’s childhood in Idaho saw her “kickboxing and grappling” from the age of nine to 19, which helped with the fight scenes.

But her astonishing physical transformation — putting on more than 2st of muscle over three months — was hard-earned, with up to five hours of training a day and countless protein shakes chugged.

She said: “I built my own ‘Rocky’ gym in my grandma’s shed and I trained back home in Idaho.

“I worked with my weight trainer in the morning and night, and then I had a boxing coach I worked with every day for two to three hours.

“I put on 35 pounds during that time.”

The movie, called Christy, which opens in cinemas on November 28, tells the story of WBC female super welterweight champion Christy, now 57, who was a trailblazer in the 1990s and put women’s boxing on the map.

But her biggest battle was behind closed doors, as her marriage to her older manager Jim Martin descended into violence.

When she tried to leave him in 2010, he shot and stabbed her. He was found guilty of attempted murder and died in prison last year.

But for Sydney, it was the strained scenes between Christy and her mum that she found the hardest to film.

She said: “Everything that happens within the house towards the end of the story of her life in the film weighed on me emotionally. But the one I had the hardest time doing and just ­processing was when she asked for her mum’s help.

“I have such amazing parents and I can go to them for anything. And I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for Christy and for others that deal with that as well.

“And it broke my heart while I was making that scene.”

As soon as Sydney heard Christy’s story, she told her team she had to have a part.

She said: “When I first read the script, I was completely blown away that I didn’t know who this woman was. She is one of the most inspiring women I’ve met in my life.”

For her part, Sydney’s grit and ­determination to succeed began at the age of ten, when she made a “five-year business plan presentation” to persuade her parents to let her try to become a movie star.

When they realised she was serious at 13, they made 38-hour round trips for auditions before relocating to Los Angeles to give her a ­better shot at stardom.

Sydney said: “It’s not easy. I didn’t get a project that helped open more doors until I was, like, 19, 20. And you get told ‘no’ endlessly by everyone.”

Sadly, her parents’ decision to relocate was a catalyst for them going bankrupt and they divorced in 2016.

But that setback only served to fuel Sydney’s drive.

She worked as a cleaner and babysitter before her break came in 2018, with roles in three big TV shows — The Handmaid’s Tale, Sharp Objects and Everything Sucks!.

A year later, she was cast as Cassie Howard in global hit Euphoria, and The White Lotus followed in 2021.

‘Really scary’

Movie hits also came with 2019’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, 2023’s Anyone But You and last year’s Madame Web and Immaculate.

In her love life, she has been linked to 44-year-old US record executive Scooter Braun, who she met at Amazon boss Jeff Bezos’ wedding to Lauren Sanchez in the summer.

But she has insisted: “I’m single.”

She was previously engaged to movie producer Jonathan Davino, but they split in March.

For now, she’s firmly focused on her career as it goes stratospheric.

Speculation has also been rife that, with Amazon now owning the James Bond franchise, Bezos wanted her to be a Bond Girl in the next movie.

She responded that it would depend on the script and that she would have “more fun” playing 007.

She said of her upcoming roles: “Of course I have projects that I’m working on and I’m developing and I can’t wait to do. It’s kind of like this crazy rollercoaster.

“You’re never sure if it’s going to go up or down or upside down.”

Her path to success, Sydney admits, has been a battle at times.

I was so nervous. It’s so weird when you’re playing somebody and then you meet them.

Sydney Sweeney

She said: “I know what it feels like to be underestimated, to have people define you before you have a chance to define yourself.

“I know what it feels like to have to prove that you deserve to be here, to be seen, to be taken seriously.”

During filming of the boxing biopic, Christy herself turned up every day on set with her Pomeranian emotional support dog Champ.

And Sydney has since formed a friendship with her, with the pair going to a Nascar event in Phoenix together last week.

It is a leap forward from their first meeting.

Sydney recalled: “I was so nervous. It’s so weird when you’re playing somebody and then you meet them.

“You’re like, ‘Do you like me? Are you going to like what I do?’. It’s really scary.”

And the star admits the role has made her see life differently.

She said: “I think Christy has changed me. I’m a huge believer in separating yourself as much as possible from your character.

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“So that the moment they call ‘action’ and ‘cut’, you’re in and you’re out. And I go home and I’m Syd.

“But with Christy, I felt like I became the most free and powerful version of myself afterwards.”

Maverick’s story

It was a cold November morning, and I had travelled with my family to our ancestral temple in a village in Tamil Nadu. My sister’s 11-month-old baby was to be tonsured for the first time – a religious head-shaving that in Hinduism is a way of discarding the evil eye and removing any negativity from past lives; a new start.

My wife drove, but asked me to park the car while she went inside with our son and her parents. I walked around the front of the vehicle and slid into the passenger seat. But when I tried to park, I felt resistance. As I pressed down on the accelerator, I noticed a middle-aged man running towards me, waving his arms frantically as he yelled for me to move the car backwards.

My mind raced as I reversed. I prayed silently that I hadn’t hurt anyone.

It was only when I got out of the car that I saw her. The thin, frail woman who now lay on the ground, shaking and murmuring. Panicked, my mind tried to make sense of how she’d come to be there – she must have sat down, assuming I’d already parked – and how badly injured she was. She curled into a foetal position as I sat down beside her and gently placed her head on my lap.

“Does it hurt anywhere, paati (granny)?” I asked.

She nodded, pointing to her leg.

I slowly pulled back the torn sari near her knee. The flesh was missing.

“You’ve been hurt, but we’ll take care of it,” I promised.

“No one will take care of me … just let me sit,” she pleaded.

Villagers started to gather, but kept their distance. One man said the woman slept on the streets near the temple and was often seen begging. A woman chided her for always sitting too close to cars. “If you don’t do something now, no one will take care of her, and she’ll die,” a man muttered before leaving.

Between groans, the woman told me her name: Chinnammal.

“Can you find my bag, thangam?” she asked, using a Tamil term for a loved one that translates to “gold”. She was in pain, but speaking to me, the person who had caused it, with such kindness.

I looked around and found her old cotton bag. It was stuffed to the brim with an open packet of chips, a half-eaten bun, a few 10-rupee notes, and some clothes.

The ambulance arrived, but there was only the driver, and it would take at least three people to lift her safely; we needed another pair of hands. There were close to 25 people around us, but no one moved.

“No one will come to lift her. She’s from a different caste. I have come to do temple rituals – otherwise, I would help,” a priest explained before hurrying away.

My wife, who had by now seen the commotion and approached, stepped forward to help, and together, we lifted Chinnammal into the ambulance. I climbed in with her.

I could see from her face that the pain came in waves. I sat next to her, one arm under her shoulders, in a kind of half-hug.

“My bag?” she asked, looking relieved when I placed it beside her hand.

“You are the first person to take me in a car,” she told me, her voice trembling.

She called me saami, a Tamil term that translates to God. I couldn’t understand how she could show me such love and respect. I asked for her forgiveness, but she simply asked me to help her sit up.

When we pulled into the hospital, two nurses in neatly pressed white uniforms appeared with a stretcher. I helped the ambulance driver lift Chinnammal onto it and wheeled her into the hospital. I told the nurses what I knew of her injuries, while they exchanged uneasy glances. When Chinnammal lurched forward and vomited, the nurses scolded her and backed away in disgust.

Inside the emergency room, the nursing manager explained that Chinnammal’s blood pressure and heart rate were high, but she was stable. She had two major injuries – a broken hip and severe grazing that would require skin grafts. Her leg, he said, was not so serious and would heal quickly.

Chinnammal reached for my hands. Hers were small and bony, but her grip was firm. Her eyes flickered, drifting in and out of focus. A soft-spoken doctor told me it was a miracle she was stable after sustaining such serious injuries.

She quietly listened to the doctor speak, but when he mentioned it would take three months for her hip to heal, Chinnammal started to wail.

“I will visit you every weekend, paati,” I reassured her.

The hospital staff took Chinnammal for an electrocardiogram, and when she returned, now hooked up to a heartbeat monitor, she grasped my hands again. She tugged on one. I leaned in. “Ask them to give me medicine to die,” she said.

I assured her that the doctors would take good care of her and that I would be there to make sure of it.

“They won’t,” she replied.

Then she looked into my eyes and lost consciousness.

I grabbed hold of her hand, but it was limp. I fell to the floor, sobbing.

Chinnammal was pronounced dead at 8.30 am on November 20, 2022. She was about 75 years old.

Chinnammal’s story

Chinnammal didn’t always live on the streets. As a younger woman, she was impeccably dressed, with flowers woven into her neatly plaited hair.

She hadn’t always begged for handouts either. She worked hard to farm a piece of land for her family, but her married life was difficult. Her husband was an alcoholic, and Chinnammal had to raise her daughter, run the house, and farm their land with little help.

She doted on her daughter and was happy when she married a man from a nearby village. A few years after her daughter married, Chinnammal’s husband died. Chinnammal adapted easily to life as a widow. She enjoyed visiting her daughter and son-in-law and would take them homemade sweets. When they struggled to conceive, Chinnammal worried, but she was overjoyed when they decided to adopt. She loved watching her grandson grow. He became her “everything”.

That joy was short-lived. Chinnammal’s daughter fell ill with a severe form of diabetes. When Chinnammal wasn’t at her daughter’s bedside, she was at the temple, praying for her, or concocting various treatments from herbs that she hoped would help.

But nothing worked, and Chinnammal watched her daughter slowly die.

That was the moment Chinnammal’s life changed. She stopped interacting with people. Some villagers started to harass and steal from her. She once filed a police complaint against a drunk neighbour who harassed her, but the police refused to help. Late one night, when she caught the man near her home, she threatened him with a sickle.

In her grief, Chinnammal no longer cared where she slept, what she ate, or how she dressed. She started to sleep by the temple, clutching her cloth bag close to her.

After Chinnammal’s death

A few hours after Chinnammal’s death, I went to the local police station and handed myself in.

A police officer contacted Chinnammal’s son-in-law to release her body and begin the family’s settlement case against me.

Her son-in-law initially refused to claim her body. The investigating officer told me he’d said, “She should have died a long time ago. She was just a burden … You can ask them to bury her and move on.”

But the officer insisted, and the man reluctantly came to the station.

When he arrived, I gave Chinnammal’s bag to the police officer, who inventoried its contents and shared the details with her son-in-law. His demeanour changed. He wanted to claim the body and register himself as her closest living relative, he explained.

“There was close to two lakhs ($2,250) in the bag you surrendered, and now this guy is trying to claim it and the compensation that the government might pay,” the police officer told me.

Chinnammal’s death felt like losing a loved one. I knew I had caused it. But she had shown no anger or animosity towards me. In her final hours, she had treated me with kindness and compassion. She had shared her love for her daughter and grandson with me, held my hand, and spoken tenderly to me despite her pain.

At the hospital, a doctor had tried to console me. “What if you had hit a child?” he’d asked. “Could you live with yourself?”

“She had lived her life,” he reasoned. But his reasoning made no sense to me.

The following day, I went to the temple to help the police with their investigation. As I stared at the spot where my life had changed, a priest interrupted my thoughts.

“You did a good job,” he said. Thinking he was chastising me, I apologised.

“No, I mean it,” he responded. “Nobody used to go near her. Local drunks used to steal the money she collected. So she used to cuss and throw stones at anyone who came near her. She had absolutely no one in this world.”

Even the temple staff used to chase her away, he explained.

“I think she chose to go through you. Through you, she died with dignity, the dignity that was denied to her in life,” he said, urging me to be at peace.

But nothing could give me peace.

I stopped driving. For a year, I withdrew from friends and family. I couldn’t sleep and, when I did, I’d see Chinnammal in my dreams. Whenever I was alone, I would think about her, replaying that day in my mind and wondering what might have happened had I done something differently.

Nearly a month after her death, I was able to track down the contact information for Chinnammal’s 19-year-old grandson. I called to ask for his forgiveness, and he asked me about the last moments I spent with her.

Three months later, at the court hearing, I was found negligent and ordered to pay a fine of 10,000 rupees ($115) to the court. At the hearing, I met Chinnammal’s grandson. I hugged him, and though he barely spoke, I could feel the warmth of his forgiveness – just like that of his paati’s.

In her dying moments, Chinnammal taught me the value of life – every life.

Chinnammal means “small mother”.

A neighbour who had known her said, “She spent her whole life caring for her daughter, and, even in death, she ensured that her family was taken care of [with her savings]. Her mind and body may have given in, but she never stopped being a mother.”

This story was told to Catherine Gilon by Maverick Prem. Information about Chinnammal’s life was gathered from interviews with her former neighbours, who asked not to be named. Her family declined to be interviewed for this story.

Maverick continues to pay his respects to Chinnammal at the temple grounds where she spent her final years. In addition to the court fine, he made a voluntary donation to Chinnammal’s grandson.

REMEMBER those big rectangular pre-digital VHS tapes?  

Well, Shooter Jennings, son of late country music great Waylon, has held on to a few of them. 

Now I’ll explain why they’re so precious to him.  

They contain episodes of a TV show almost as popular as Dallas in the early Eighties — The Dukes Of Hazzard. 

As the opening credits roll, you see “The General Lee”, a souped-up 1969 orange Dodge Charger, careering into view.  

Inside are outlaw cousins Bo and Luke Duke, on the run from crooked officials, Boss Hogg and Sheriff Rosco P Coltrane. 

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You hear the rollicking theme tune, Good Ol’ Boys, being sung in commanding, if tongue-in-cheek fashion by — you might have guessed — Waylon Jennings. 

He also serves as the show’s laidback narrator, The Balladeer, and one of his pearls of wisdom is about poster girl Daisy Duke, remembered for her skimpy denim shorts. 

“She drives like [stock car racer] Richard Petty, shoots like Annie Oakley, and knows the words to all of Dolly Parton’s songs.” 

But he doesn’t appear on screen until season seven when, after demands from fans, he is presented as an old friend of the Dukes in an ­episode titled Welcome, Waylon Jennings. 

‘A massive cultural moment’ 

“Just last night, my wife and I were watching some episodes,” Shooter tells me via Zoom from America’s West Coast as we discuss a fabulous new project involving his father’s previously unreleased music. 

“It made me think what a massive cultural moment the show was,” he continues. “Just how perfect my father’s voice was for it. 

“I think he loved doing those shows and it wasn’t a lot of work for him. He’d be on the road and just stop by a studio and do the voiceovers. 

“There’s real humility about them. He seems to be making fun of himself the whole time. It’s really funny to hear.”  

Waylon is remembered as a ­pioneer of the “Outlaw” country scene, a singer who wrestled the Nashville music-making machine and won control over his recorded output. 

Hellraiser, maverick and bearer of a rich baritone, he was an obvious choice to join fellow renegades Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson in Eighties supergroup The Highwaymen. 

Born in Littlefield, Texas, in 1937, he was consumed by music at an early age and, in 1958, came under the wing of Buddy Holly, who arranged his first recording ­session. 

The stuff of legend, Waylon gave up his seat on the flight that killed Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens on February 3, 1959 — “the day the music died”. 

Shooter says: “If my dad had got on the plane, the music world would be quite different. I often think what it must have been like for him to have survived that. 

“Throughout his life, Buddy was huge to him and he used to talk about him all the time. 

“A lot of his spirit and energy came from rock and roll, from Buddy, who gave him little lessons in songwriting. 

“But he also loved country music, the beauty and sentiment of it, and his voice was just so ­vulnerable and awesome.” 

From the mid-Sixties onwards, Waylon would become a fixture at the top of the country charts but his best work appeared after he gained creative control from RCA Records in 1973.  

He delivered a string of fine unvarnished albums including Lonesome, On’ry And Mean, Honky Tonk Heroes, Dreaming My Dreams and Are You Ready For The Country. 

In 1979, he and fourth wife Jessi Colter, a fellow “Outlaw” country singer, had their only child together, Waylon Albright “Shooter” Jennings. 

The Albright comes from Richie Albright, Waylon Snr’s right- hand man and drummer in The Waylors. 

And the main reason I’m talking to Shooter is because he has unearthed a goldmine of un­released Waylon recordings, taped between 1973 and 1984. 

This has resulted in the appearance of Songbird, the first of three albums culled from the material and lovingly restored by him with the help of surviving members of his dad’s band, along with younger musicians and backing singers. 

‘Passion and soul alive today’ 

“It’s been surreal,” says Shooter, a singer in his own right and in-demand producer. “Everything has lined up for me to have this purpose. 

“This project has given me an entirely new chapter in my relationship with my father and working on this music has brought a whole new understanding about how, when and why my dad made music.  

“The hard work is there on the tapes and the passion and the soul within is as alive today as it was the day it was recorded.” 

I guess the reason The Dukes Of Hazzard cropped up in our chat is because much of the Songbird album’s music was recorded around the same time as the show aired. 

Then I just kept finding these hidden albums,” he says. “It didn’t feel like stuff that was not meant to be released and there were songs I never knew he’d attempted.

Shooter Jennings

Shooter became aware of Waylon’s buried treasure in 2008, “about six years after he died” aged 64 from complications of diabetes.  

But the project only began in earnest last summer when he started sorting through hundreds of high-resolution multitrack transfers of his father’s personal studio recordings.  

What Shooter discovered blew his mind.  

Listening to his dad performing with his ace band became “a wild adventure”. When Shooter heard their cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours track Songbird, written by Christine McVie, he realised he was on to something “really exciting”. 

“Then I just kept finding these hidden albums,” he says. “It didn’t feel like stuff that was not meant to be released and there were songs I never knew he’d attempted.” 

Shooter says that much of the material was “professional cuts with a lot of attention to detail, much more than sketches”. 

“My mom told me that my dad always said that every song he recorded should be good enough to be a single when it was done. He had a great work ethic.” 

Shooter settled on Songbird as the opening track and album title because he realised that Waylon “was a kind of songbird”. 

“I wanted to hit home how good a song interpreter he was and how he could make a song his own,” he says. “And I wanted to bring him back with an emotional song, one that’s going to make you cry. 

“Every time I play it for anyone, they tear up at the bit which goes, ‘And I feel that when I’m with you, it’s all right’. 

“It’s such a beautiful take that people are shocked they haven’t heard it before.” 

In order to take Songbird to even greater heights, Shooter enlisted contemporary country singers Ashley Monroe and Elizabeth Cook to provide backing vocals. 

‘Obsessed with Hank Williams’ 

“They’re the funniest people, like a duo, and they’re hill­billies like me,” he says. 

“Elizabeth and I have been really good friends for 15 years plus and she brought Ashley to my studio around the time I was going through this. 

“And they were so moved by Songbird. I realised their airy, birdlike voices could elevate it to some fantasy realm. 

“So I asked them to come back and do some background vocals and they really killed it.” 

Also adding finishing flourishes to the album’s ten tracks are some surviving Waylors including guitarist Gordon Payne, bassist Jerry Bridges, keyboardist Barny Robertson, and backing vocalist Carter Robertson. 

The second song The Cowboy (Small Texas Town) is credited to Johnny Rodriguez but Shooter suspects his father had a hand in writing it. 

These telling lines back up that theory: “My long shaggy hair, and the clothes that I wear/Ain’t fit for no big fancy ball.” 

The song fits with Waylon’s image of staying true to his humble origins — a quality Shooter sees in today’s stars such as Charley Crockett, Tyler Childers and Benjamin Tod. 

He credits his father with blazing a trail for these independent spirits thanks to his battle with RCA Records. “My dad really opened it up. And even though Nashville got their grip back on it for a little while, they’ve been blown apart now.

“They’re just scrambling to find anyone who’s like one of these guys.” 

I ask Shooter what Waylon used to tell him about growing up in Littlefield, Texas. 

“He would tell me how poor they were, for sure, that they had dirt floors, that his mom would put him in places the rats wouldn’t get to.”  

When Waylon became famous, the town would hold a Waylon Jennings Day and their favourite son “would go back there and do a show”. 

Shooter adds: “I loved my dad’s family, his brothers and his mom. I got to know all of them and his brother James is still around and runs this little gas station there.” 

Unbeknown to the residents of Littlefield in 2025, Shooter decided to put up billboards around town featuring lyrics to some of the Songbird songs.

He and Johnny [Cash] came from the exact same background. They both picked cotton. They both listened to Hank Williams on the radio and both journeyed to Mecca [Nashville] to make music.

Shooter Jennings

“I didn’t even tell them. But when we put out that song, The Cowboy, I really wanted to put the focus on Littlefield.” 

We’ve heard about Buddy Holly but I’m keen to find out from Shooter who else was his father’s music hero. He instantly mentions country music’s first superstar — Hank Williams, who lived fast and died young. 

“My father was obsessed with Hank Williams. He was similar in a way because of the vision he had for his songs.” 

As for Waylon’s reputation as a hellraiser, Shooter has this to say: “It’s funny, he didn’t drink. People always get that wrong. 

“He only did the uppers but we had an empty alcohol cabinet in our house because he just didn’t get any.” 

And what does Waylon’s recently remarried widow Jessi Colter, Shooter’s mother, think of the Songbird project? 

“She has helped us,” he replies. “I had to borrow money from her to do it because I didn’t want to get a label involved. 

“She was also a great emotional support to me, even if she wasn’t emotionally tied up in the project.” 

Hearing Waylon sing “didn’t make her sad but she loved it. She’d say something like, ‘They sound like they were having a good time that day.’ ”  

Before we go our separate ways, Shooter opens up about Waylon’s famous friends, notably his Highwaymen buddies Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson, still touring and making records at 94.

Waylon and Cash shared an apartment in Nashville in the mid-Sixties and had a strong, if sometimes tempestuous bond. 

“They loved each other,” says Shooter. “Just like anybody else, they would have little bicker fights and not talk for a couple of weeks here or there.  

“But he had a great relationship with Johnny and June [Carter Cash].  

“He and Johnny came from the exact same background. They both picked cotton. They both listened to Hank Williams on the radio and both journeyed to Mecca [Nashville] to make music.” 

Shooter continues: “And I loved Cash. We used to go to his house when I was little. He was always very nice to me.” 

He also remembers hanging out with Nelson’s daughters Amy and Paula. “We were all around the same age and together on the road during the Waylon and Willie tours.  

“And then The Highwaymen happened and I was around Kristofferson’s kids because they lived in Tennessee. 

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“Life’s weird, man,” decides Shooter. “I got dealt a really good hand being born to who I was. So I don’t take it lightly.” 

Hence a son’s labour of love to bring Waylon’s music to a whole new audience. 

WAYLON JENNINGS 

Songbird 

★★★★☆