‘Challengers’ Press Conference Highlights: Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist

A synopsis of Challengers could read, “A love triangle set in the world of competitive tennis.” That’s true enough, but fails to capture the film’s essence. Directed by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, Bones and All) from a screenplay by playwright Justin Kuritzkes, Challengers is a fast-paced action drama on the court and a twisted, smolderingly sensual relationship story when the rackets are put away.

Two-time Emmy winner Zendaya (Euphoria) stars as Tashi, a rising tennis star who suffers a traumatic career-ending knee injury. Tashi remains in the game as the wife and coach of Art (BAFTA nominee Mike Faist, West Side Story), a tennis star whose passion for the game is waning. Emmy winner Josh O’Connor (The Crown) stars as Patrick, a struggling player with an unwavering belief that he’s destined for greatness. The trio’s complicated decade-plus history unfolds in a non-linear fashion, revealing the mind games they’ve played on and off the court.

Amazon MGM Studios hosted a press conference with director Guadagnino, writer Kuritzkes, producer Amy Pascal, Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O’Connor ahead of the film’s April 26, 2024 theatrical release. During the Q&A, Zendaya (who also serves as a producer), Faist, and O’Connor discussed the film’s appeal, tennis lessons, and Art and Patrick’s toxic bromance.

Challengers Press Conference Highlights:

What made you say that you not only wanted to star in Challengers but also serve as a producer?

Zendaya: “I believe I was still shooting Euphoria at the time. And it’s one of those things where everybody knows that especially when I’m working it’s really hard to get me to do anything else other than focus on what I’m going to do tomorrow on set. [Laughing] And so we kind of had like a mock table read at my agent’s house, and I just fell in love with the script. I mean, it was brilliant. And it also made me very nervous as something to tackle because of, I think, how complicated these characters are. I think because of also I couldn’t define what kind of movie it was.

Like, it was funny. It was so funny, but I wouldn’t say it was a comedy. But there was drama. But I wouldn’t say it was just a drama. You know? And it had tennis, but it wasn’t like a sports movie. So, I think that feeling that it was kind of just like everything at once in this beautiful way was terrifying but equally exhilarating and exciting.

And it was a character that I feel like I had never read before, and never seen before. And she scared the shit out of me. So, I was like, ‘Maybe I need to do this.’ And I think being able to be a part of it in a creative sense and, you know, hopefully be in service to the characters and our incredible team here, and help in any way I can to help bring that to life. And then hearing that Luca had read it and was interested in doing it was like a dream, because I was such a fan of his work for so long.

We had met once at a Fenty dinner and he was so kind and so sweet to me. He helped me get vegetarian options because I couldn’t speak Italian. [Laughing] And I loved him then. But I had been hoping to work with him in some capacity. So, the idea that it would be this was, I mean, magical.

We sat and we talked over Zoom. And I understood that he understood the kind of movie we wanted to create. He understood these characters in such a deep sense down to, like, you know, we were joking about what kind of lotion she would use before she goes to bed at night. You know what I mean?

These are these little details that I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, you know this woman. You get her. You see her.’ And he had that same instinct for a lot of characters. So, it just felt like an obvious yes for me.”

Mike, how did this project come to you and was it a quick yes?

Mike Faist: “I was home in Ohio and I think, like Z, it’s really hard for me, for my team, to get me to read anything. [Laughing] Just period. Period, pretty much, yeah. And my agent actually called me. She gave me a call and she said, ‘Mike, you have to read this script.’ And I was like, ‘All right, well, that sounds serious.’ So, I read it and you know in those moments when you’re like, ‘F**k, I hate when other people are right…’

And so then, from there, I met with Luca. Luca and I…you were in Italy. I was in Ohio. We Zoomed. We met each other. We chatted. And then they flew me to London to meet with Z and we did a screen test there. I remember I left the screen test and I was walking around London, and I actually felt like it went atrociously wrong. I thought, ‘Okay, well, I did not book that at all.’ And then Luca gave me a call, and he said, ‘Mike, where are you? Come back, have lunch with me.’

I guess we sat down and had lunch. […] We just chatted some more and got to know each other.

But the thing that stuck out with me personally that was the draw to want to do this, besides the script and the team, because it was always gonna be art, is what they were asking me to kinda look at. And the thing that really stuck out with me about the character was this idea of a person, this craftsman who’s fallen out of love with his craft. He’s so desperately trying to kinda get back to that place of purity, that place of – Josh uses the word ‘flow’ – where you’re just, it’s like a form of transcendence. When you’re just in your work and just in your craft, and you actually love the process of doing it.

And I think for all of us at times, we kind of ebb and flow throughout our artistic endeavors to always strive to try to find those projects that pull something out of us that makes us feel compelled to really conjure the things for ourselves, to pursue it to the fullest extent that we can. And that just leapt off the page with me, genuinely, with this character. I thought, ‘I understand this very deeply and I would be very, very lucky to be a part of it.’”

Josh, what made you say yes and then where did you start? Did you model him after anyone in particular?

Josh O’Connor: “Well, what made me say yes was Luca and Zendaya. And Mike wasn’t on board at that point. But if Mike had been on board, that would’ve also contributed. I think also, I knew Luca before. We’d met a few years before and we talked about making some work together for a while.

What I liked about Patrick initially, I mean, I love both the characters, and I actually read the script like a year or two before because I met Justin in New York because [of] my American agent. I just moved to New York and I was on the phone to my agent one day and I said, ‘I have got no friends.’ And so he set me up on a friend date.”

Justin Kuritzkes: “We had a little date.”

Josh O’Connor: “He gave me a script to read. But really, it was just, ‘Josh, here’s a friend to make.’”

Justin Kuritzkes: “I’ll just embarrass you. Josh had also just won an Emmy at that point. And we were at this coffee shop, and people kept coming up to congratulate [him].”

Josh O’Connor: “Anyway, so I’d read the script before. But then when Luca asked me about doing it, initially Patrick was kind of…I thought this would be kind of beyond my reach. I felt like this was a character that was so confident, so front-footed, so comfortable in himself, even though he has, as we all do, fears and insecurities. […] He completely lives life to the fullest and is very accepting of his flaws. And all those things seemed like a reach. Luca very brilliantly kind of accepted that and made me feel comfortable around that.

There was a process once we started preparing where we had to kind of pull those things out. It didn’t fit comfortably for me to not hide. You know, he doesn’t hide at all. So, all those things contributed. But there was no doubt, really. You know, it’s such an honor and a privilege to get to work with people like this. And so, yeah, that was an immediate yes.”

Can you talk about your tennis training to prepare for the film?

Zendaya: “Tennis training. Yeah. The ‘gym work,’ as Josh puts it. Man, I mean, we were lucky enough to kind of, I don’t know, I call it summer camp. It was great because essentially we got about almost six weeks before we actually started production to just work on tennis. And we were under the support and guidance of Brad [Gilbert], who is incredible and an iconic person in his own right.

Truthfully, I had no idea about tennis. I knew nothing. All I really knew of tennis was Venus and Serena. [Laughing] And so, again, it was one of those things that it was terrifying as a challenge to take on because you know you’re supposed to be a great tennis player. And I’ve never been a great tennis player. I think I was incredibly nervous showing up. And I think we were all incredibly nervous showing up on that first day. And so, we did tennis training beside each other. We worked out beside each other.

We also had rehearsal beside each other, which was such a privilege to be able to have that time to work on the script, to get to know each other. But during that tennis training time, I think I was driving myself crazy trying to become a tennis player, right? I was trying to learn the fundamentals. I remember when I first started hitting the ball, it just would go off into trees. It was just never even close to the court. And I was like, ‘Damn, I got a long way to go.’

With tennis, if you’re picking it up, it’s not a game you could just pick up, right? Unless you’ve been playing since four, it’s not happening for you. [Laughing] You know what I mean? So, I would come in and I feel like I would get it. I’m like, ‘Yeah, I got this, okay,’ like something clicked. And then you come in the next day and you can’t do it. You can’t recreate it. [Laughing] You’re like, ‘Damn.’ You know, back to square one.

I think there’s one thing too, is like they’re feeding me balls, right? I once asked, I said, ‘I want to try to see what it feels like to return a serve. Someone hit me a real one.’

The way that thing flew by me so fast! And at the time, I still had glasses. I’ve since had LASIK, so I couldn’t even see the dang thing. So, at some point I realized, ‘Okay, my approach has to be different because whatever this is isn’t working.’ As soon as the ball’s flying at me, all of a sudden my fundamentals and the form – everything is gone. Hit it or get out of the way.

[…] Watching Luca, I think he was starting to build these scenes and choreograph them because every shot in these tennis sequences was storyboarded. It was so thought out and it was so meticulous. So, I said, ‘Okay, well, maybe that’s how I need to approach it too. Let me approach it like choreography.’ I’m a dancer, so let me dance this thing out, you know? And I began to just focus on [that].

We had amazing tennis doubles and I just wanted to sync up with her. I wanted to understand her footwork, her patterns, her movements, and just try to make it as seamless as possible. I wanted to look like her mirror.

And then I’d record myself next to her, and I’d watch it back. ‘Mm, I could do that a little better. Her arms a little more, her shoulders a little bit. […] She’s quicker on her feet.’

So that kind of became my entryway into looking like a tennis player. Because I knew that at some point I wasn’t gonna be one, but I could fake it. [Laughing] So yeah, that kind of became eventually where we got. But the training was pretty intense. And it was great to do it beside them because I know they were just as committed as well. And, yeah, we’re struggling together.”

Mike and Josh, how did you make the toxic bromance between your characters work so well?

Mike Faist: “Well, we hate each other.”

Josh O’Connor: “Mike does this joke sometimes, and sometimes he follows up with a punchline of like…”

Zendaya: “…just kidding.”

Josh O’Connor: “’We don’t, actually. Just kidding, we’re great friends.’ But in the UK last week, we did an interview where he committed so much to this joke that it sounded like I bullied you. [Laughing] And it was extraordinary. But I think today he’s gonna give…”

Mike Faist: “Josh genuinely in the middle of the interview was screaming at me, ‘Please tell them that you’re joking!’

Look, we had, as Z was saying earlier, we had a very luxuriant time six weeks prior to actually shooting. When we got to Boston, we had six weeks of training and rehearsal with Luca and Justin and Amy, and just getting to know each other. And then on top of that, Josh and I would just spend any other time that we had just running lines around Boston. Just walking around and we would just run lines. We’d go to the park. We would just walk around the city and we would just run the lines.

By the time we actually got to those scenes… Josh and I also commuted every day together so we spent so much time together. And then more or less, we knew each other’s lines like that. So, we were able to kinda just come in and be like a tennis match. Just be right on top of each other. As an actor, when you’re given the opportunity to work with another amazing actor such as Josh with such strong instincts and specific choices, Josh pings me something and that gives me something to actually play with to throw him back.

I think we both understood these people pretty well. We understood the roles that we needed to play for each other. It gave us the kind of freedom in the space to play and make choices. And Luca was really great in terms of feeding us ideas and directing us in the position that we needed to go. I think between, genuinely, the three of us, we just very much knew instinctually what direction we all kinda wanted the story to go in.”

Zendaya, at the premiere you asked the audience not to judge Tashi too harshly. But the overwhelming consensus is that people love Tashi being a baddie. Have you learned to embrace her being a bit of a villainess? Or do you feel she’s just misunderstood?

Zendaya: [Laughing] “Well, I think the response might be just, like, the refreshing nature that it’s a female character that doesn’t have to be likable and doesn’t care about you liking her, and doesn’t ask for forgiveness. I think that that is probably refreshing, maybe, to some people. I understand that, and that was refreshing to me when I read her. That was why I wanted to play her, you know? But I think, honestly, I say that before screenings sometimes because I feel like it’s our natural instinct to judge people in general. So, it’s easy to judge these characters and I understand that because we all do. And I think the beauty of this film is that your mind will change because I know mine has. Every time I watch it; every time I read it.

I mean, honestly, I had preconceived notions about the characters, and then these guys came in and with their performances alone changed my perception of these characters. What they brought to them, how they embodied them, the life they gave them. So, I think it’s one of those things that it’s ever-changing how I feel, or my perception of the characters is ever-changing.

So, every time I watch it – and I made the dang thing – I’m still surprised that every time I go, ‘Oh, well, this time I’m kinda feeling for this character now,’ or, ‘This time I’m Team So-and-so.’ You’re constantly living with them and learning something new about them. So, I say that only because I know that you’ll be wrong. Like, you’re gonna have an initial reaction, and then you’ll come back and you’ll change it. That’s the beauty of it, you know? Just to empathize with them.”