The original script forChallengersdidn’t include the viral shot where Tashi , Art , and Patrick make out on a bed in a hotel .
There are obviously monolithic spoilers ahead forChallengers !
1.First, the originalChallengersscriptdidn’t includethe scene when Tashi, Art, and Patrick are kissing on their hotel beds and then it leads to Art and Patrick making out while Tashi watches. Writer Justin Kuritzkes said directorLuca Guadagnino"encouraged" him to write the scene.
2.For the scene where Art and Patrick hang out at Stanford and share a churro, the duo eating churroswasn’t in the scriptbut rather something Luca,Mike Faist, and Josh O’Connor came up with on the day of filming.
3.Also, Mikeexplainedthat Art biting Patrick’s churro wasn’t scripted either, but something he just did in the moment after seeing Josh holding the churro so close to his mouth.
4.The umpire at the New Rochelle final, where Art and Patrick play against each other, isportrayed byDarnell Appling, who is Zendaya’s longtime assistant and friend. He previously appeared as a fan who swarms MJ and Peter outside their school inSpider-Man: No Way Home, too.
5.The “I Told Ya” T-shirt that Tashi and Patrick both wear in the movie is areferenceto a paparazzi photo of John F. Kennedy Jr., who was wearing the shirt. The “I Told Ya” slogan has a connection to theinaugural buttonsfor President John F. Kennedy in 1961.
6.The moment when the crowd is looking back and forth as Art and Patrick play each other, but Tashi is looking straight ahead, is anhomageto Alfred Hitchcock’sStrangers on a Train. Luca Guadagnino explained, “For me, [it’s] the greatest tennis match seen on screen.”
7.Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross created the mesmerizing score forChallengers,which wasinspired byBerlin techno and ’90s rave music. The duo had previously worked on Luca Guadagnino’sBones and All.
8.Justin Kuritzkes said he wasoriginally inspiredby the 2018 US Open, and infamous final match where Naomi Osaka beat Serena Williams to win her first Grand Slam title. The “controversial” gameincludedSerena pleading with the umpire after she received a penalty for reportedly receiving signals from her coach in the stands.
9.Former tennis player and current coach Brad Gilbert was the tennis coach and consultant onChallengers. While the script had “all the directions” for how each point would go, it was Brad’s job tochoreographand “write out each point.”
10.Zendaya, Mike, and Joshtrainedfor six weeks at a country club outside of Boston before filming began, where they were coached by Brad and his wife Kim Gilbert. Each actor was on theirown courtas they trained.
11.For the tennis games, in order for the volleys and points to exactly match the script and Brad’s choreography, the actors wereonly holdingthe racket’s handle. They were able to swing with the intensity that professional tennis players exhibit, and then the ball and head of the racket were added using CGI.
12.Mike began training forChallengersright after he finished filmingWest Side Story(2021). In order to gain weight and muscle for the role of Art Donaldson, tennis coach Brad GilbertsaidMike “had to eat between 8,000 and 10,000 calories a day.”
13.Writer Justin Kuritzkes said from the beginning hewantedTashi Duncan to be portrayed by a Black actor because “the story of American tennis is Black women for the past however many decades.” When Zendaya was interested in the project, Justin said it was perfect because “the cultural space that Zendaya occupies in the world is the space that the character Tashi was supposed to occupy — that was the life she was supposed to have.”
14.LucavisitedZendaya on the set ofDune: Part Twoin order to complete ADR, aka re-recording some of an actor’s dialogue while a movie is in post-production, forChallengers. Zendaya literally completed it in between filming scenes forDune: Part Two.
15.And finally, each scene was onlyfilmedonce or twice, which surprised Zendaya because that meant everything moved “super fast.” Luca says he likes approaching his movies this way because if a performance is great, it “doesn’t need to take 90 takes.”
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