Academy Award Winner Emma Stone is putting down her Oscar (for La La Land) to pick up a tennis racket for a new biopic about one of the greatest tennis players of all time Billie Jean King. The movie is set in 1973 when at that time King was married to a man, but she later in 1981 came out as gay, becoming the first prominent female athlete to do so. She has also been an outspoken advocate for for LGBT rights and for women in sports, arguing for equal pay for female players and founding the Women’s Tennis Association in 1973.
In the movie Stone plays tennis legend King who agrees to a game against former tennis champ and real MCP Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) that became one of the most watched televised sports event of all time. that became known as “Battle of the Sexes”. The movie, also starring Andrea Riseborough, Elisabeth Shue, Austin Stowell, Sarah Silverman and Alan Cumming is due in movie theaters in September, and Fox Searchlight have just released this trailer.