Emily Bett Rickards Talks Queen Of The Ring, WWE Hall Of Famer Mildred Burke Biopic

Emily Bett Rickards first received acclaim for her role on "Arrow," bringing to life Felicity Smoak, the adorably quirky computer wiz and love interest to protagonist Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), a reformed billionaire playboy and crime-fighting vigilante who would eventually take the name Green Arrow. Over the course of the series' eight-year run on the CW — the new home of "WWE NXT" — Rickards also made guest appearances on the Arrowverse's other programs, including "The Flash," "Supergirl," and "DC's Legends of Tomorrow.

After series production wrapped, Amell hung up his hood in Star City in favor of the Duffy Wrestling League, taking on the role of Jack Spade in the indie wrestling drama "Heels," which recently arrived on Netflix. Rickards is now on her own wrestling journey as well, but instead of a small town in the South, she's traveling back in time to bring to life WWE Hall of Famer and women's wrestling pioneer Mildred Burke in the biopic "Queen of the Ring," which is currently on the festival circuit, including its recent world premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival. 

Rickards sat down with Wrestling Inc. to discuss her role in "Queen of the Ring," how she brought a WWE Hall of Famer to life, and working with WWE vet Al Snow and AEW stars Kamille and Toni Storm in roles in which WWE's Charlotte Flair and Liv Morgan were initially cast

Kevin Tall: Hey Emily! How are you? 

Emily Bett RIckards: I'm good. How are you?

I'm great. Thanks for taking a little bit of time to talk to me, let's get to it. How did you become attached to the Queen of the Ring, and what about it caught your interest?

Well, I had got the script, arrived in my inbox and my team had said, "Give this a read. We think it's interesting. The director would like to meet with you." I read the script written by Ash, our director, adapted from Jeff Leen's book on Mildred's life. And I had never heard of her, but the script was emotional and definitely had a throughline of a real story. The fact that she was a real person too, only piqued my interest more.

So after speaking with Ash, the conversation was, "Have you had any wrestling experience?" "No, not really." I did feel like I was physically capable of learning. I've always been quite athletic and I felt like I had the potential, so there was something in me that was clicking for that. But mostly, I just connected to her heart and who she was and the fact that she had this huge dream that seemed well, unattainable to not only her of the time, but women of the time, and how she against all odds went after that. So the rest is history.

What was your level of familiarity with professional wrestling before taking on the role?

I would say below zero. If it could be below zero, it would've been. I had never been to a wrestling match. I had never watched wrestling at all. To get welcomed into a world like this is an honor because, not only are you an immediate fan, you are an immediate fan that's treated with respect and so much gift of education. People were coming to me to talk to me about their personal wrestling journeys, which really helped me build the character of Mildred. I had one friend in the wrestling world, Brady Malibu was his wrestling name, who was just so excited to teach me to do anything in that sense.

It's potentially a really a common characteristic of wrestlers, at least the wrestlers I've gotten to know, through OVW and all the women that you see us wrestling in this movie who are professional wrestlers like Toni Storm and Kailey ["Kamille" Farmer] at AEW.

There's such an affinity to want to share that knowledge, and that's a gift.

All right. This might be a little self-evident at this point, but do you have a new appreciation for wrestling as an entertainment medium after working on this?

Oh yeah. I mean, almost immediately. I think that's what I was trying to say is that when you get welcomed into a world when you don't know anything about it, you have to be an immediate fan of something like this. It's storytelling, it's physicality, it's performance, it's character-driven. I'm already in the business of character-driven stories and to see these personas come to life. People who have dreams, it's always intriguing to hear about people's dreams, and I think hearing about other people's dreams always inspire our own, and wrestling is full of dreams.

How do you approach bringing to life a real person on screen as opposed to a fictional character? Is there any added pressure in doing so?

Yeah, you want to do the character justice and you want to honor the character as well as honor the script and story that your collaborators and yourself have signed on to tell. So I think the honesty in which you want to portray this, in my case, woman, you want to come out with a real honest perspective. And then there's a ton of research, luckily enough, on someone like Mildred. She was during the era when publication was apparent and when TV was starting to happen, she was just in the mix of that. She didn't get too large into that, but the fact that that type of media was around her era made it a lot easier to find photographs of her and research.

There was a book done on her by Jeff Leen, which the script is also based off of, and we definitely, Ash specifically, encourages everybody to read the book because there's so much in there, so much more than our story could hold in the format of the timestamp of our movie. So yeah, you really have to do your best to honor the person and embody that spirit. I really hope that we did Mildred proud.

You had mentioned her heart. Do you think that would be the most important trait of hers to bring to your portrayal?

Yeah. Yeah. I think I would almost say that about every character, but I'm not sure if that will change going forward. I think that we all relate to different organs in our body in a sense, but she really lives in the heart. This dream starts in the heart, mothering is in the heart. She has something that is in here and churning all the time and this want for love and to share love in a way that is part of her place and was part of her place on this earth.

We've gotten into your character; what kind of training did you go through for the in-ring work in the film?

Yeah, so when I arrived in Louisville, we were trained at OVW in Louisville, which Al Snow and Dougie Basham headlined that for us. Our stunt coordinators, Heath and Jeff, as well as my stunt double Kelly, were there as big leaders as well in that. And then all the wrestlers at OVW too, who let me slam them incessantly for practice and who shared their stories with me about wrestling and who let me come to watch some of their shows and their matches. All of that was education that you can't get without getting shared with, without people sharing it with you. I was really lucky to have that.

So yeah, a lot of wrestling rehearsals, a lot of learning choreography, a lot of learning about the history of wrestling, why persona is so important, what persona means to certain people, how people choose their names, even what they wear, those kind of things are all creating this character, which creates the storyline of why we fall in love with wrestling. Getting welcomed into that world was so fun and it's definitely started to turn it up all the way to a hundred percent when I arrived in Louisville.

Awesome. I actually got to talk to Al for his Netflix show last year and just the passion he has when he approaches just anything, any aspect of wrestling, was so impressive.

Wow.

How in depth were your interactions with him?

Oh, yeah. He was there to guide through a lot of the training. He has a very calming presence, even when he is talking about, well, I guess to me were really large things, like getting thrown upside down and things like that. There's a real groundedness to him, to a lot of wrestlers actually, I have to say. There's a passion, but it's not like up in the air. It's grounded in something rooted and it makes you feel safe to dream in that area and play in that arena.

On screen, you mix it up with some legit pro wrestlers, as you mentioned, Toni Storm and Kamille, as she goes by professionally. How helpful were they in putting together those scenes?

Well, I wrestled with Kailey a lot, Kamille a lot, and not only was she helpful, she's guiding them. She's a real leader. She is. I bow down. She is those wrestling scenes. When you get to see them in the film, there is no scene, there is no wrestling without her, she is really leading and guiding as well as Toni in our wrestling as well. I didn't get to spend as much time with Toni, but once again, she is guiding that. They're the pros. I'm the guest in those arenas, and I'm really grateful for their guidance.

Kailey, perhaps in stark contrast to her actual character in the film.

Yes. Well, I think that that's the backstory there. Even though we're in layman's term, enemies, in the films or nemeses, she is definitely helping me as a friend throughout the whole shooting process. She is my scene partner.

How would you compare scenes with those two to the ones between more traditional actors like Deborah Woll and Kelli Berglund?

I don't know if there's... Yeah, I guess, my first flash of memory of those scenes is I am really wrestling heavily with Toni and Kailey, whereas in comparison, we aren't wrestling in most of our other scenes. So it's a different acting, we're all acting and we're all in character, but the format of the scenes, of what the scenes asked of us, were we're very different.

Alrighty. Kelli, of course, has appeared in "Heels" alongside your "Arrow" co-star, Stephen Amell. Who do you think out of the rest of the Arrowverse would be most likely to next step into the ring?

Juliana. Let's get Juliana [Harkavy].

Any particular reason?

I could see it. I don't know. I feel like she could crush it. I feel like she could do it really well.

Stephen's also actually wrestled some legit matches as well. Did you ask him for any pointers?

No, I didn't. I had forgotten. I called my friend Brady and that was my first reach out.

All right. Do you have any ambitions to step into the ring yourself?

Well, I don't know. It's been about a year since we filmed, and at the time, I would've said I spent so much time in the ring that it really felt like it was a huge part of my life. I think coming back to routine of my own life has been... I feel a little bit further away from it than I once did, but I'll never say never.

It could be fun.

Where would you rank this film in your body of work?

Well, I don't know if I would rank my work. Interesting question though. I'll have to say that as an actor, it was a real privilege to be able to transform in this way and it has changed and created a hunger in me to want to transform more deeply and give characters that I play more justice and more honesty and it's a craft that evolves. And she Mildred taught me specifically that there is capacity to do that, and that's something I'll take with me for the rest of my life.

Alrighty, Emily, I think we're about out of time, so thank you so much for talking to me today. I really appreciate it.

Thanks, Kevin. Have a great day.

"Queen of the Ring" will be screening at the Twin Cities Film Festival in Minneapolis; Kansas' Tallgrass Film Festival; the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival; the Coronado Island Film Festival; and the St. Louis International Film Festival.