It has been announced that Alan Cumming has joined the cast of 1970s tennis drama Battle of the Sexes. Sporting rivalries are nothing new: Senna and Prost; Messi and Ronaldo, Borg and McEnroe. What you don’t often see is a sporting rivalry that spans gender.
Based on real events, Battle of the Sexes will explore the famous match held in 1973 between two tennis legends: Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.
Riggs had been the Men’s World No. 1 in the 1940s and King was regarded as one of the greatest individuals to ever pick up a racket. The idea was for the two to meet in a challenge match to see whether a woman could beat a man at the sport. However due to Riggs’ misogynistic goading the match took on a symbolic role for the Women’s Lib movement, becoming more than just a simple tennis match.
Steve Carell and Emma Stone will be playing Riggs and King respectively; Cumming will join the drama in the role of Ted Tinling, the openly-gay tennis player who supported King when she herself came out as gay.
Joining Cumming in the supporting cast are Angela Riseborough, Elisabeth Shue and Sarah Silverman. Directing Battle of the Sexes are Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the duo behind Little Miss Sunshine, and are armed with a script from Simon Beaufoy.
Battle of the Sexes will be released some time in 2017, with filming currently underway.
#Peace.Love.BattleOfTheSexes
