Luca Guadagnino, the film director of Challengers, an upcoming movie about tennis in which Zendaya also stars, revealed for Variety how much the award-winning actress practiced the white sport for the role. “She’s wonderful,” Guadagnino told Variety Saturday night at the Academy Museum Gala per Variety.
“I mean, wow. We edited the movie and we almost actually don’t use any of her double. She’s so good”. According to Variety, Guadagnino described Challengers as being a “s*xy comedy”. “Production wrapped in June .
Former professional tennis player Brad Gilbert is a consultant on the film,” notes Variety. “They spent like three months working very hard,” Guadagnino said. “Everybody – technically, athletically”.
What is Zendaya’s role in the movie
The director of the new film ‘Challengers,’ in which Zendaya stars as a main character, Luca Guadagnino, stated that the protagonists of the film are characters facing difficulties.
“I don’t want to think much about ‘Challengers,’” Guadagnino admitted as quoted by IndieWire. “I think those three characters in that movie are beautifully complex and really f*cked-up people that I love very much.
And a sports film, why not? It’s hyperkinetic, and I do films, so it’s great”. The film director, speaking to IndieWire, also described ‘Challengers’ as “a fairly fizzy, s*xy movie about the world of tennis” .
The release date of the film is expected to be August 11, 2023. In the cast, besides Zendaya, are actors Josh O’Connor, known for the Netflix series The Crown, and Mike Feist, known for his role in West Side Story. Spoiler alert: per IMDB, “the story follows Tashi (played by Zendaya), a tennis player-turned-coach who has taken her husband, Art, and transformed him from a mediocre player into a world-famous Grand Slam champion.
To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she makes him play a “Challenger” event — close to the lowest level of tournament on the pro tour — where he finds himself standing across the net from the once-promising, now burnt -out Patrick: his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend”