Love, set and match for young aces
IN THE GAME OF LUST AND SCORE, ZENDAYA BREAKS ALL THE RULES IN A FLICK ABOUT TENNIS, REDEMPTION, POWER AND DISCOVERY
If you’re someone who needs a clear and concise ending to a film, all wrapped up in a little bow of clarity, Zendaya’s latest flick is not for you.
Challengers, by admission of the lead star, is “confusing”. “If anything it is messy and it is complicated and I always felt every time I read the script or I watched the film that I am confused and I leave feeling differently,” Zendaya told Insider. “One day I am like, I am team Patrick today. And then the next day, it is like, Tashi wins and f*&k both of you guys. I just can’t quite ever tell. That is the beautiful thing, it is a conversation that kind of just keeps spinning and I don’t think we ever quite get a definitive answer about any of that.”
Tashi and Patrick are two of the three lead characters in Challengers. Zendaya plays Tashi while Josh O’Connor is Patrick and Mike Faist rounds out the third in the acting trio as Art Donaldson.
Directed by Luca Guadagnino, the movie is released on April 18 with the trio of characters engaged in a brutally fascinating love triangle.
It is a tennis film but the message is not about the sport itself, although lovers of the game will no doubt enjoy.
“It is about a lot of things. We joke that it is called ‘Co-dependency The Movie,” Zendaya explained. “That is what it is – it is about using tennis as a giant metaphor for power, for codependency – and these characters use it as a tool to love each other, hate each other, and hurt each other.”
Faist and O’Connor joined Zendaya on the first stop of the global promo tour for the film in Sydney. They agreed people will find different meanings from the ending.
“The point is that they can’t find the ideal situation for all of them and actually they are all bitter,” O’Connor, best known for playing a young Prince Charles in awardwinning international TV series, The Crown, said. “They are all in love, they are all deeply attracted to each other and there is no conclusion necessarily. I am sure lots of people will have their own conclusions but that is part of their discovery – that they maybe don’t need that conclusion and they just need to accept that they are all deeply flawed individuals.”
Tennis is a universal sport that perfectly fits the metaphor, added Faist : “If you are a tennis fan, you’ll go into it with that and hopefully you will get a bit more at the same time.”
On top of learning lines and preparing mentally for the characters, all three took part in intensive tennis training in what they called their “summer camp”.
“It was really cool actually – we shot in Boston at this rec centre where they had these three courts beside each other and every morning we’d come in, we each had our own court and we’d try to be tennis players for however long,” Zendaya explained. “And then we would go next door and do our training for however long and everybody would go off, get their shit together, have something to eat and we’d come back and do some rehearsals into the scenes, figure it out and we’d do it all again the next day.”
She continued: “I loved that process because it was nice to have a schedule but also it was fun and nice to do it beside them because I feel like it created our little bubble and our little bond because I’d look over and they’re sweaty and they’re confused and you’re like, ‘shit, they’re better than me’. But we were all rooting for each other. It built a really great foundation because we knew these characters were going to be complicated and it is nice to play characters that hate each other with people who really like each other and then enjoy going to work.”
Interestingly, all three actors spoke of impostor syndrome, admitting it is something they feel regularly.
All three were nervous about playing tennis, or more accurately not playing tennis well on camera.
“I went into that process feeling very insecure,” Faist said. “It was very nerve racking. But that time allowed me at least to put that kind of to the side and focus on the work. Luckily, I was in very good company. Any time you go into something, if you are not scared, then you probably shouldn’t do it.”
They are refreshing and encouraging words for those of us living seemingly normal lives watching Hollywood stars in acting thinking they’re superhuman or that they’ve someone got it easy.
For O’Connor, the rigid training schedule helped him overcome the nerves and insecurities too.
“We all have varying levels of impostor syndrome so every day on
any job, I am like, ‘I cannot act, I am the worst at it’,” he said. “It felt like it didn’t matter what level you were at, we were just set tasks and you did them, which removed any of that sort of doubt about ‘can I play this role, can I do this’. Your head was just down. We were so fortunate that on day one we were all in this together and none of us knew what we were doing.”
The trio laugh now about their tennis game. Putting on a comedic accent and using sh instead of s, Zendaya said her tennis game was “rusty to say the least”. O’Connor’s was “not good” going in and “still rubbish” now. Faist played one season of tennis in high school and began training six weeks earlier than his two lead co-stars. “I had a little bit of a leg up,” he said with the caveat that his high school tennis was “15 years ago”.
Something that strikes you when watching the film is the intense chemistry between the three actors. You can’t take your eyes off the screen. Again, this was a big challenge for the three.
“This film is such a difficult balance because, really, there is so much chemistry but alongside that there is so much competitiveness,” O’Connor explained. “With such heavy material on camera – physically and mentally – the trio kept things light off set.
“We enjoyed each other’s company just having fun and being very unserious in real life so that we could just do the work when the camera is on. You’d feel safe. That lightheartedness, if you can laugh, make fun or whatever, I guess maybe that is where the chemistry feels real because you are in a space where I am good.”
From Australia, O’Connor, Faist and Zendaya continue their global tour to promote the film with stops in Rome, Paris, Milan, London and Monte-Carlo. Sydney marked O’Connor and Faist’s first trip to Australia.
“It is really surreal still going to these incredible places,” O’Connor said. “It is one of the things with our job I feel like we take for granted, you get to go to these incredible places, although sometimes you don’t get to see much of it. We are so fortunate to come to these places and visit them and share our work and be able to witness that. It is also terrifying sharing the film for the first time.”
Challengers is in cinemas from April 18