In ‘Battle of the Sexes,’ King passes a baton to Emma Stone
TORONTO — Walking through a tunnel alongside Billie Jean King at the grounds of the U.S. Open, Emma Stone gasped at the size of its main court.
King, of course, was more familiar with the sprawling tennis centre in Queens, New York — it’s named after her, after all (the stadium itself is named after another tennis legend, Arthur Ashe). But as accustomed as Stone is to the spotlight, her playing fields are usually private film sets or more intimate television show audiences. In making “Battle of the Sexes,” a new film about King’s infamous 1973 showdown with Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell), Stone was often both awed and a little jealous of the stages on which King crusaded for sport and for women’s rights. (King helped win equal prize money for women at the U.S. Open that same year.)
In tennis, the lines are clear, the scoreboard is final and a landmark victory against sexism could go down in straight sets.
“It’s just such a longer conversation in the movie industry,” Stone said in an interview shortly after watching the women’s finals with King earlier this month, which saw Sloane Stephens capture the trophy. “When I look at a tennis match, whoever wins at the end, the prize money should be equal. There are so many moving parts in how that comes to pass on a film to film basis. But of course things need to be changed.”