Steve Carell reveals hardest thing about making Battle of the Sexes

STEVE Carell plays an infamous male chauvinist tennis pro alongside Emma Stone in their new film — and tells news.com.au the topic is more relevant than ever.

A PRESCIENT parallel of our current political climate, Battle of the Sexes couldn’t be opening at a more interesting time.

It will also be a career-changer for Steve Carell, who plays world tennis legend Bobby Riggs, a male chauvinist of the highest order who orchestrated what remains one of the world’s most-watched TV stunts of all time.

“He’s perceived as this icon of male chauvinism but the truth of the matter was, it was an act. It was an interesting dichotomy to me to play a role like that,” Carell told news.com.au

“He knew how to generate interest in himself. He saw the cultural Zeitgeist of women’s lib and said, ‘Oh, I’m going to insert myself as this guy, I’m going to be the male chauvinist pig.’”

In 1973, 90 million people worldwide tuned in to watch Riggs, 55, play against then-women’s world tennis champion Billie Jean King, 29, already a pioneer for pay and gender equality. Riggs, who had long tooted his own horn ahead of the match, insisted he would obviously pocket the $100,000 prize because the women’s game was vastly inferior.

Carell and Emma Stone play real-life tennis rivals doing battle across gender lines. Picture: Melinda Sue Gordon/Fox Searchlight Pictures via AP

It’s a career-changing role for Carell, also 55, and he knows it. So often the funnyman with a heart, Carell has demonstrated his extraordinary dramatic range before in films like Foxcatcher, The Way, Way Back and Little Miss Sunshine (the latter film’s director duo, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, are also at the helm for Battle of the Sexes). But Riggs is a dream against-type role for a man universally adored by Hollywood executives, his fellow actors and the media.

“Wait a second! Hold on, are you insinuating that I’m not macho?” he roars, reverting to his favoured interview strategy: winning wry self-deprecation. “That’s the way my woman likes it!” he laughs.

He also found “the nudity factor” appealing, he adds with a smirk. “That’s what really drew me to the film, my ability to finally be nude in a movie.”

Carell on his character: “Bobby was a hustler, a self-promoter and a showman.”

Carell is referring to a scene in which Riggs poses for a Playgirl centrefold pictorial, typical of that era.

“No doubt about it. Bobby was a hustler, a self-promoter and a showman one hundred per cent,” Carell continues. “And listen, I remember the whole thing, and I knew even at age 11 that this guy was putting everybody on. He just wasn’t a good enough actor to really be believable.”

Mustering Riggs’ showy bluster wasn’t the hardest part of Carell preparation. He also had to play tennis like a champion, duplicating some of the tennis match’s famed rallies shot by shot.

“I’m not a tennis devotee,” he admits. “I played tennis as a kid. I never played high school tennis, it was mostly recreational tennis. So for three months I got together with Bobby’s actual coach and trained and learned. We would practice a lot. I loved it.”

Carell and Stone also had to play with 1970s-style wood rackets with a much smaller surface area than today’s gargantuan models made mostly from graphite, tungsten and titanium.

“We had to go on eBay to find the rackets. That was a trip. From a modern racket to those tiny things they played with was a wake-up call. It was like a badminton racket.”

And although most of the tennis action we see onscreen is performed by stunt doubles, it wasn’t all smoke and mirrors. “Yes, that’s true. We’re in it too!”

“The fact that gender disparity still exists is sad.” Picture: Getty

So, has Carell come to any gender loggerheads in his own life?

“No. I’ve been married 22 years now [to actress and comedian Nancy] and I don’t want to get into that, but let’s just say it works out very well for us.”

On the subject of equality between the sexes, he says, “This movie should be a period piece. We should be able to look back at that and say, ‘Oh my gosh, can you believe people were like that back in the ‘70s?’ But the fact that gender disparity still exists, whether it was more than it was then or less, the fact that it even still exists is sad.”

Carell being a progressive modern male is no surprise given that his upbringing was itself ahead of the times. His father worked as an electrical engineer and his mother a psychiatric nurse. “Both my parents were equal breadwinners, so there was complete equity. They split the child-rearing and the house stuff. But it wasn’t a discussion. Was my mum a women’s libber? Yes, but I don’t think she knew it. She was a groundbreaker, she was a really strong, intelligent woman, but we just didn’t label it.”

Like Riggs, Carell, 55, had to run the court against a woman half his age. Would he beat Stone, 28, in a game of tennis? “Can I beat Emma?”

Ever the gentleman, he concludes, “Probably at nothing.”

Originally published as Steve Carell reveals hardest thing about making Battle of the Sexes