Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor talk with us about their preparation to play tennis champions in “Challengers”, a sports drama in theaters since April 24.
“I am the best air tennis player, by far”, Zendaya tells us during her visit to Paris, to promote Challengers, an intense and sexy drama where points are won on and off the tennis courts. Alongside Mike Faist (West Side Story) and Josh O’Connor (The Crown), the actress plays a former champion whose career was shattered by an injury.
Which does not prevent him, like his two male partners, from handling the racket during tennis scenes, within this story which comes and goes in time, like two opponents passing the ball back and forth. But was there a lot of digital trickery to achieve the result visible in theaters since April 24?
Like in these shots where Zendaya, always her, throws a ball back into the camera, without us deploring the loss of the latter afterwards. “We obviously didn’t use real bullets for certain sequences”she answers us on this subject. “Because I think it would be almost impossible to get her to go to exactly the right place at the right time. At least as far as I’m concerned.”
“I am the best air tennis player, by far”
“It obviously took a lot of pressure off me, but we also had to make sure we found the rhythm, because when you don’t have a tennis ball you’re just miming, and the pace can be a little too fast , because it’s not real.”
The actress and her partners also talk about their preparation and the support they received. But also from playing a character with whom they have little in common on paper. If you had questions after seeing Luca Guadagnino’s film, in theaters since April 24, here are, perhaps, some answers.
Comments collected by Maximilien Pierrette in Paris on April 6, 2024 – Editing: Alexandre Ear