Rachel McAdams Steps into the Boxing World in “Southpaw”

ABC/Image Group LA(NEW YORK) — Rachel McAdams plays Maureen Hope, the onscreen wife of fictional boxing champ Billy “The Great” Hope, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, in Southpaw. 

The actress told ABC’s Good Morning America that the film is about more than boxing — it’s about a family trying to survive.

“We kinda came from the mean streets of Hells Kitchen, grew up together, going through the foster care system,” she said Thursday of the relationship between her character and Gyllenhaal’s. “Really, we’ve known each other since we were kids and so we’ve always had each other’s back and we’re best friends, but also I sorta feel like Maureen is the front line for Billy, in a sport that can be really brutal.”

McAdams said she didn’t know much about boxing before filming, so she had to educate herself.

“I sort of talked to some families of boxers and spent a little time in the ring myself, trying to just to get a feel for it, just [to see] how physically grueling it is and just to understand a little bit what Jake, himself, was going through because he was really putting himself through it every day,” she explained. 

Being a boxing novice, the actress said it was hard watching some of the fights play out, particularly in one scene with co-star 50 Cent. 

“It was interesting because I had to play this woman that has been watching her husband get hit for 20 years. But I, for me, Rachel, it was all brand new,” McAdams said. “So I remember being in the front row with 50 and Jake’s team and Jake got actually hit in the face and we all went [gasps] and I was like, ‘Oh that’s not what my character would do! Oh no!'”

Southpaw, also starring Forest Whitaker and Oona Laurence, is out Friday.


ABC US News | World News

Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.