In 1973, Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs went head to head in a televised tennis match. The champion won $100,000, but both competitors had ulterior motives far larger than a cash prize. King was determined to shed light on women’s rights, while Riggs wanted to prove that he was not a washed-up athlete.
Fox Searchlight's Battle of the Sexes, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, recounts the rivalry between King (Emma Stone) and Riggs (Steve Carell). Stone previously told The Hollywood Reporter that the film goes beyond the historical match and is also about “love, social change and people discovering who they are.”
The cast of real-life characters also includes Andrea Riseborough, Sarah Silverman, Bill Pullman, Alan Cumming, Elisabeth Shue and Austin Stowell.
Read on to find out how the actors prepared to play their real-life counterparts.
