Sarah Silverman Joins Cast of Billie Jean King Pic ‘Battle of the Sexes’
Sarah Silverman. Image by Getty Images
By Maia Efrem March 24, 2016
Sarah Silverman is stretching her acting chops in her second foray in a drama as she joins the cast of “Battle of the Sexes,” a retelling of the historic 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.
According to , Silverman joins co-stars Emma Stone and Steve Carrel and will play Gladys Heldman, the founder of World Tennis magazine, who also helped organize King and other female players on a women’s only game circuit because they were not paid as much as their male cohorts. Heldman was later inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
King, 29 at the time, was the number two ranked female player in the world when she beat Riggs, a 55-year-old retired Wimbledon champion, in a much publicized match.
Silverman’s first dramatic performance was in this past fall’s “I Smile Back” about a woman dealing with depression. The role garnered critical acclaim and a SAG nomination.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
