Francesca Eastwood did the work to prepare for 'Queen Of The Ring'.
Along with a number of other actors and wrestlers, the film features Eastwood's portrayal of Mae Young. This is the first time that Young has been portrayed in a movie, which surely only added pressure for Eastwood, who previously starred in movies like 'Juror #2', 'Old', and 'Clawfoot'.
While speaking with Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful for a new interview, Francesca Eastwood stated that she started out by studying Young's later work, noting that she was very intimidated by it all.
"Well, that's what I started with. I started with her later work because there's just so much of it. I thought, ‘Oh, God damn. Like this is... What the—who in their right mind thought that I could do this?’ I was very intimidated. That never went away. But I started with the later work and then I started with the Dark Side of Wrestling and all this great footage and these interviews and her talk radio interviews. I went backwards on the journey of trying to find out, ‘Alright, who was this woman at a young age just starting out, just getting out of Oklahoma and just going and chase her dreams? Who was she then?’ I still get like the butterflies when I think about taking on a legend like her."
While speaking about Young's late career work, Eastwood said that she could see Mae Young getting her own show in the future.
"When we were on set, and we would get into character and stuff, we were like, ‘God, don't you wish we could do a little body slams through the table, like prosthetics.’ Mae, I could see her having her own show sometime. She was great."
Eastwood finished off the topic by recalling some of her favorite moments from Mae Young's career.
"No, no, what I started in with was her induction speech, which was beautiful and very moving. Then I went into the hand and the body slam and the schoolgirl uniforms. I was like, ‘What am I getting into?’ and then trace it back to the beginning. So it was fun. It was fun. She seemed like she had a lot of fun. So this was a great role because at the end of the day, no matter how nervous I was, I was like, ‘What would Mae do? She'd have fun. She’d love what she was doing."
Elsewhere in the interview, Eastwood talked about possibly wrestling a real match. Check out her full comments on the matter here.
Fans can check out Fightful's full interview with Eastwood in the video linked at the top of this article.
'Queen Of The Ring' hits theaters on Friday, March 7. Find showtimes near you by clicking here.
