There are obviously MASSIVE spoilers ahead for Challengers!
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The original script for Challengers didn't include the viral scene where Tashi, Art, and Patrick make out on a bed in a hotel.
There are obviously MASSIVE spoilers ahead for Challengers!
Trent and Atticus have worked together on scores for nearly 15 years, including The Social Network in 2010, which earned them an Academy Award for Best Original Score.
The duo won Best Original Score again in 2021 for Pixar's Soul.
Justin recalled that seeing that moment play out made him realize how "cinematic the situation could be: how alone each player was, yet how linked to each other."
He added that the 2018 US Open was when he started watching tennis all the time, and that's when he found the world of Challenger tournaments. He said, "Although the stands at a Challenger are mostly empty, the players' emotions are just as if they were at the US Open because they’re fighting for their lives. It’s the humiliation of being a gladiator, and nobody's even there to watch you die."
Brad explained, "So I needed to write out each point, like a play-by-play. Something like, 'This is a seven-ball rally, forehand to forehand,' and so on. And then, once you're actually filming the seven-ball rally, you've got to do the same seven-ball rally over every single time until you get it right." While practicing in Boston prior to filming, Brad said Luca would also give notes on how points would play out, too.
After filming Challengers, Brad went on to coach Coco Gauff to her first US Open win in 2023.
Prior to arriving in Boston, Brad also trained with Zendaya for a couple of months in LA. She worked with a trainer and then worked on technique, namely copying techniques of real tennis players.
Brad would send Zendaya videos of Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova to watch and study, and he took her to several college matches at Pepperdine and UCLA.
Speaking about the CGI used in the tennis scenes, Zendaya explained that she used her dance background to treat the tennis moves like dance choreography.
She added, "For all the tennis sequences, [they are] meticulously choreographed. So we just treated it like choreography, and I tried to mirror [my tennis double] as much as I could and get the form."
He added, "I also knew that I didn't want to not specify the races of the characters. That always feels to me like you’re avoiding something. Her being a Black woman informs a lot about how she navigates her situation and how she navigates her relationship with these guys."
Luca recalled, “I went to Budapest to meet Z and Timmy [Chalamet], and we were doing ADR for Z on Challengers, and we did that on [the Dune: Part Two] backlot." While visiting, Luca also got to walk onto one of the big Dune: Part Two sets, too.
Of course, Luca previously worked with Timothée on Call Me by Your Name and Bones and All.
Luca added, "It’s exciting when you observe performance. I will quit the moment in which I know that I’m going to be lazy or bored or I don’t have this energy of seeing performance happening."
One moment Luca recalled that stressed the importance of only filming a scene a few times for him was when he watched Mike pick at his fingernails while he was anxious before the scene when Tashi, Art, and Patrick kiss in the hotel room. Luca called the gesture "fantastic" and asked Mike to do it on camera, and he didn't need him to perform that scene more than necessary.