Interview: Emily Bett Rickards on playing America’s first million-dollar female athlete in wrestling biopic Queen of the Ring

An extraordinary, true-life tale, Queen of the Ring is an uplifting drama that follows Mildred Burke, the legendary professional wrestler and single mother who defied incredible odds to become the first million-dollar female athlete and longest reigning champion at a time when the sport was banned across most of America.

Through Emily Bett Rickards‘ transformative performance, Mildred’s persona is brought to life, and as the film makes its away across the international film festival circuit, Peter Gray spoke with the Arrow actress about her changed perspective on the sport itself, how it felt to play a woman that so few know about, and what she found was her own personal throughline to this story.

I didn’t know who Mildred Burke was, so I loved going into this film not knowing anything and being taken on a journey to learn about her.  Was she someone that you were aware of when the film came about?

I had never heard her name.  I didn’t know who she was.  I mean, I got a very quick education on her life, and once I started it just snowballed.  I couldn’t get enough.  It’s surprising that we don’t know who she was.  I was grateful that the script was adapted from Jeff Leen’s book.  It was a very great piece of writing on her life, so it was already easy to digest, easy to follow.  It was entertaining and honest.  It was very helpful to have that in a pair with the script.  And there’s always Wikipedia and the photos, oh my gosh, the photos are just endless.  She loved to be in front of the camera.  There’s this incredible journey of seeing her evolve.  And there’s nothing like an old timey photo.  This moment just frozen in time.

Because you have those photos and so much information, did you feel like that made it easy for you to make your own way with her as a character? There’s always going to be some pressure in playing a real-life person, but because she has passed, is there a sense of removal?

Yeah, I guess, I would say that in my best moments, pressure isn’t a word that I’d like to use.  The reality of it is that those sort of creeping thoughts do come in.  You want to do this person justice.  You want to honour this human who walks the Earth and that you’re sort of spiritually asking to come visit you, you know? I don’t know.  There’s so much we could grasp from her.  I played another woman who was alive in the late 1800s, her name was Calamity Jane.  It’s a different era and a different time, obviously, but it’s a similar feeling of, “What can I grasp from their energy and soul? What am I allowed to, as well? What are we telling in this particular story? And how does this help serve not only the story, but also the hope we can tell it to people today?”  I guess there’s pressure in there, but there’s always therapy (laughs), and there’s hopefully a way to surrender to this person, as opposed to trying to push my way in.  I just want to make sure she’s fully embodied.

Off the mention of embodiment, the physicality of this role must’ve been difficult…

Well, what I discovered with her was that when I was first rehearsing with her off the page, I started to build this body shape that is hers.  It felt foreign to me.  Like she has a structure to standing that I didn’t have, and that was part in putting on certain types of muscle, and feeling new muscles and engaging a spine…her spine is just packed with muscle tissue, and I would be kind of trying to find it early on, but I didn’t have the structure.  So, it was a perfect marriage of the two, which I don’t think I’ve had the opportunity as an actor before.  There’s always a spine to a character, but in this particular woman it was a very muscle built strength.  And vanity built, right? It was a lot of show and a lot of physical strength.

Was Mildred’s determination a good throughline for you? Looking at you career, this is an industry you have to be thick skinned in, and you have to have that determination in knowing this is what you want to do.  Was that something you could relate to? 

You nailed it on the head.  It was definitely a hook line, for sure.  I don’t think I fully understood that until maybe a month or two into rehearsal.  I could write down all these characteristics about her, that she was driven and persistent, and I didn’t realize off the bat that it was sort of a guizer of a dream that she described.  I can’t remember what word she used, like a lunatics dream, or something like that.  It was a self-described dream that she wrote in her unpublished autobiography, and I thought, against all odds, there’s this propeller of hoping it means you’re not chasing something out of lunacy, but it’s where your bliss is.  I can only hope.  We definitely had that sort of come to fruition.  Maybe Mildred knew more than I did, but it was definitely a hook, line and sinker for me as an actor.

Did it change your perception of wrestling? Did you have a perception of wrestling?

It definitely changed my perspective.  Like, I can wrestle now.  It’s completely changed my entire education and knowledge of it.  But I’m not really sure I had any sort of judgements on it.  I didn’t know much about wrestling at all.  I like to kickbox, and I’ve watched MMA, and I like boxing, that kind of thing.  My vision of a ring is different.  But I love the stories behind wrestling, and I think that’s what people love about (it).  And that speaks so much to me as an actor and storyteller.  That’s why we go and listen to stories around a campfire.  It’s why we see our favourite movie 20 times.  There’s something we learn about ourselves through these bigger than life personas.  I don’t know if you know any of that psychology, but there’s this vision that we put out towards the world, and that’s our persona and what we live for.

Mildred is a “face” in the wrestling ring, but obviously the “heels” have more fun in getting out there to talk shit.  What role would you personally want to take?

I mean, everyone says they’re so fun.  I haven’t gotten to play a villain as an actor.  I can do it in my home or in class, no problem, so I should say I haven’t been paid to be a villain yet (laughs).  But there’s a freedom to it.  I think all characters are worth exploring.  We all learn something from them.  And a heel or a villain, you know, they wake up trying to have a good day, too.

On the mention of villainy, I found it interesting to watch the dynamic between yourself and Josh Lucas’ character.  She’s so confident in the ring, but then when Mildred’s at home, as much as she’s confident as a mother, that marriage exposes that weakness that she still has.

The mental gymnastics of it all…I mean, manipulative relationships and what’s in ourselves that we’re trying to fulfill for someone else.  In this time in Mildred’s life, her business was so linked to being married to this man.  And it was an impossible task to accomplish this dream and go through a divorce without money and without the education around business.  And she was forcefully on purpose kept out of the business side.  But it wasn’t for any lack of want.  I think that was part of the manipulation.

Queen of the Ring screened as part of this year’s Newport Beach Film Festival, which ran between October 17th and 24th, 2024.

Peter Gray

Seasoned film critic. Gives a great interview. Penchant for horror. Unashamed fan of Michelle Pfeiffer and Jason Momoa.