ZENDAYA, JOSH O'CONNOR, MIKE FAIST TALK ABOUT WORKING TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 'CHALLENGERS'
There is a genuine camaraderie among the three actors – Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist – as they teased each other without feeling any animosity.
All three portray tennis players in a love triangle movie, "Challengers," helmed by Luca Guadagnino.
Zendaya, who portrays Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy turned coach, teased Josh (Patrick Zweig) when we asked them in our exclusive one-on-one interview with the three stars how it was working together for the first time. "You sound so fake! You sound like you are telling a lie!" she teased Josh who responded with a big laugh.
"Ok Z!" the guys affectionately call Zendaya, who is dressed in a green and white mini skirt tennis outfit.
Mike (Art Donaldson), on the other hand, was being ribbed by Josh.
So how did they bond, we asked.
"We were working together for six weeks – training, rehearsing, getting to know our characters and of course, each other. It is important to build that trust and support system especially since it is always just the three of us onscreen," the 27-year-old Zendaya replied.
Mike added, "We met in Boston and for six weeks we were trained by former tennis pro Brad Gilbert, who trained Andre Agassi and currently is training Coco Gauff on the pro circuit. We train for a few hours and work out and then rehearse for more hours with Luca and scriptwriter Justin (Kuritzkes) and go through the script and work."
Josh shared what was memorable for him. He said, "We love being outdoors instead of being in the trailers which were very far. We love being silly together and talk about snacks! We had a great time."
As for Zendaya, what was memorable for her was the whole experience. "All of it was quite memorable – the scene of the three of us together, the scene of you together and I get to watch you and you two being in the zone. As a producer too, I loved that scene. We had a brilliant time together and I just love being outside and having a good time."
We also talked to the three talented cast members and director Luca Guadagnino, scriptwriter Justin Kuritzkes, and producer Amy Pascal in a press conference. Below are excerpts from that interview.
Amy, what was it about the script that just locked you in and said, "I have to do this?"
Amy Pascal (producer)
Rachel (O'Connor) runs my company, and we've been working together for the last 20 years. And Justin's agent, Sue, sent it to Rachel, and she loved it. And Rachel sent it to me, and I loved it. And then we begged Justin to be the producer of it. And we had quite a bit of competition. But I think what really locked it, and I don't think Z knows this, but I'll say it now, is we promised we'd get her to do it.
I said, "You know, I know there's a lot of other producers, but I know Z personally. And I will get her to do this movie." And that is why Justin chose us, I'm certain.
Justin Kuritzkes (scriptwriter)
I can confirm that's partly true.
No, you know, when I heard that Amy was interested in the script, I was completely over the moon, because Amy is a legend. There are a lot of phases of this process that have felt very surreal. But if I'm being honest, that was the moment when the movie felt real to me. When I felt, like, oh, this might actually happen was when I heard that Amy wanted to do it.
Justin, can you walk us through your process of writing it?
JK: Yeah, of course. Before writing the script, I hadn't been that massive of a sports fan, or a tennis fan. And then around 2018, I just happened to turn on the US Open. It was the final between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka.
And there was this very controversial call from the umpire where he accused Serena Williams of receiving coaching from the sidelines. I had never heard of this rule, but Serena Williams was saying, "That didn't happen. I would never do that." But immediately this struck me as this intensely cinematic situation where you're all alone on your side of the court, and there's this one other person in this massive tennis stadium who cares as much about what happens to you as you do. But you can't talk to them. And for whatever reason, it just clicked in my mind, well, what if you really needed to talk about something? And what if it was something beyond tennis? What if it was something that was going on with the two of you?
What if it involved the person on the other side of the net? How would you have that conversation? How could you communicate the tension of that situation using the tools that are specific to the film? That was really where it all started for me.
Zendaya, where were you in your career when Amy brought this project to you, and what made you say, "I have to do this, and I also want to be a producer on it as well."
Zendaya (actress, producer)
And it's one of those things where everybody knows that, like, especially when I'm working, it's really hard to, like, get me to do anything else other than focus on what I'm going to do tomorrow on set. So we kind of had a mock table read at my agent's house. I just fell in love with the script. It was brilliant. It also made me very nervous as something to tackle because of how complicated these characters are.
I think because 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.
It was a character that I feel like I had never read before, and never seen before. 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 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 met once at a Fenty dinner. He was so kind and so sweet to me. He helped me get vegetarian options because I couldn't speak Italian. 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 magical. We sat, and we talked over Zoom. 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, we were joking about what kind of lotion she would use before she goes to bed at night.
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 the characters. So it just felt like an obvious yes for me.
Luca, what made you say, "I've got to direct this script?"
Luca Guadagnino (director)
Amy and I have been courting each other for many years now. And there is a sort of an unspoken love story between the two of us. But when Amy sent me the script, I was working on something else. She called me every half hour to ask me if I was reading it or not. Eventually, I had to read it while working. The script was fantastic. The characters were amazing. The structure was so cinematic that I just immediately, instinctively felt that the company of Amy, the company of Zendaya, and the company of Justin, the artistic endeavor that we could all gather together in this would've been fantastic.
And so I think I said I was in immediately.
It was meetings. It was encounters. Encounters with Justin. Encounters, re-meeting with Zendaya. I am a control freak. But I felt there was a playfulness in making this movie that made me very happy about it.
Mike, how did this project come to you, and why was it, I'm assuming, a quick yes for you to do this?
Mike Faist (actor)
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.
And my agent 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---, I hate when other people are right."
And so from there, I met Luca. Luca was in Italy and I was in Ohio. We Zoomed. We met each other. We chatted. And then they flew me to London to meet with Z.
We did a screen test there. I remember I left the screen test, and I was walking around London, and I felt like it went atrociously wrong.
And 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 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 look at. The thing that 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 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 love the process of doing it.
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 conjure the things for ourselves, to pursue it to the fullest extent that we can. That just leaped off the page with me, genuinely, with this character. I thought, I understand this very deeply. I would be very, very lucky to be a part of it.
It's like when that feeling of fear pops up within you, that's a really good indicator that you probably should do it.
Josh, what about yourself? Where did you even start with building this character? What made you say yes, and then where did you start? Did you model him after anyone in particular?
Josh O'Connor (actor)
I knew Luca before. We'd met a few years before. We talked about doing some work together for a while. I love both the characters, and I read the script a year or two before. Because I met Justin in New York. I just moved to New York, and I was on the phone with my agent one day and I said, "I have got no friends." And so he set me up on a friend date.
We had a little date. And I guess to kind of, like, guise under the idea of this is also work, Josh. He gave me a script to read. But really, it was just, "Josh, here's a friend to make."
So I'd read the script before. But then when Luca asked me about doing it, initially I thought my character Patrick would be beyond my reach. And 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. But he completely lives life to the full. He is very accepting of his flaws. And all those things seemed like a reach. Luca very brilliantly accepted that and made me feel comfortable around that. There was a process once we started preparing where we had to pull those things out.
It didn't fit comfortably for me to not hide. He doesn't hide at all. So all those things contributed. But there was no doubt. It's such an honor and a privilege to get to work with people like this. That was an immediate yes.
Zendaya, can you talk about your tennis training process for the role?
The gym work, as Josh puts it. I call it summer camp. It was great. Because essentially, we got about almost six weeks before we started production to just work on tennis. And we were under the support and guidance of Brad, who is incredible and an iconic person in his own right.
And truthfully, I had no idea about tennis. I knew nothing. All I knew of tennis was Venus and Serena. And so, again, it was one of those things that it was terrifying as a challenge to take on. Because you're supposed to be a great tennis player. And I've never been a great tennis player. I was incredibly nervous showing up. We were all incredibly nervous showing up on that first day. 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 was driving myself crazy trying to become a tennis player, right? Like, I was trying to learn the fundamentals and make sure. 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. I was like, "Damn, I got a long way to go."
And eventually, 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 you were four, it's not happening to you. I would come in, and I feel like I would get it. I'm like, "Yeah, I got this." Okay, like something clicked. Then you come in the next day and you can't do it. You can't recreate it. You're like, "Damn." Back to square one. 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 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. Luca 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. I began to just focus on it. We had amazing tennis doubles. I just wanted to sync up with her, right? 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 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. That became eventually where we got. But the training was pretty intense. 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?
Josh: Mike does this joke sometimes, and sometimes he follows up with a punchline of like "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. And it was extraordinary.
Mike: 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. 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.
And by the time we actually got to those scenes, one, 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 just come in and be like, [makes noise]. Just like a tennis match. Just be right on top of each other. And 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 play with to throw him back.
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. Luca was great in terms of feeding us ideas and directing us to the position where we needed to go. And 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 I've heard an overwhelming consensus that people love Tashi being a baddie. Have you learned to embrace her being a bit of a villainess? Or do you feel like she's just misunderstood?
Zendaya: 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. And that is probably refreshing, maybe, to some people. I understand that. That was refreshing to me when I read her. That was why I wanted to play her. But I say that before screening 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. 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. Honestly, I had preconceived notions about the characters, and then these guys came in, and 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 everchanging how I feel, or my perception of the characters is everchanging.
And 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." So you're constantly living with them and learning something new about them. I say that only because I know that you'll be wrong. You're gonna have an initial reaction, and then you'll come back and you'll change it. And that's the beauty of it. And just to empathize with them.
—MGP, GMA Integrated NewsThis article Zendaya, Josh O'Connor, Mike Faist talk about working together for the first time in 'Challengers' was originally published in GMA News Online.
2024-04-23T08:04:01Z dg43tfdfdgfd