In the rousing sports film Challengers, Dune star Zendaya slips into the role of aspiring tennis player Tashi Duncan. The actress has really put her heart and soul into her training.
Ever since the HBO series Euphoria, there has been no doubt that Zendaya is a great actress. But how does she perform in the role of a professional athlete? For Challengers, which has just been released in cinemas, Zendaya put in several months of training to deliver a convincing performance.
Together with her co-stars Mike Faist (West Side Story) and Josh O’Connor (La Chimera), she was recently a guest on BBC’s The One Show. Together, the three of them talked about filming the adrenaline-filled sports movie and, of course, their training. It was also about the question of who got the most into their role.
Challengers: This is how hard tennis training was for Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor
In order to make the tennis scenes in Challengers as convincing as possible, the team led by director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name) worked with experts from the sport. Zendaya explains in the interview:
‘We had an incredible group of people who accompanied us during training. We had many, many weeks of tennis training under the guidance of Brad Gilbert, who is a famous tennis coach himself.
(Zendaya in Challengers)
The Internet is particularly enthusiastic about a video showing Zendaya training with her stunt double Kara Hall Wangler. Both perform the movements in almost perfect synchronization. This discipline can definitely be felt in the finished film. Every impact whizzes across the big screen with incredible force.
One fan commented on the video on Twitter with the following words:
I can’t stop watching this video of Zendaya training for Challengers with her stunt double.
Can’t stop watching this video of Zendaya training for Challengers with her stunt double pic.twitter.com/3CXebwLdPN
– Bastien Fachan (@BastienFachan) April 23, 2024
Who put in the most effort? If we can believe Faist, it was Zendaya. “You’re a monster, you’re crazy,” he says to Zendaya on The One Show. Even before training together, she had been training alone for three months, as Women’s Health breaks down in a detailed report.
Zendaya and co. had to get up at 6am for the tough Challengers workout
The three months of training in Malibu were followed by six more intensive weeks in which Zendaya stood on a tennis court in Boston together with Faist and C’Connor before the first flap officially fell. The stars had to be on the mat as early as 6 a.m. so that Gilbert’s training could start on time at 7 a.m.
(Zendaya in Challengers)
The trio were not only active on the tennis court. Strength training in the gym was also part of their daily routine to get in shape. In addition to the physical hurdles, Gilbert also prepared the Challengers cast for the mental challenges that every tennis player has to face on the court.
Read more: Challengers with Zendaya is the best movie of the year so far
In the end, the tennis action worked like a dance routine, so that Zendaya & Co. were perfectly attuned to their opponents. Particularly exciting: the style of Zendaya’s character was modeled after real models. Gilbert based her training on tennis stars Naomi Osaka, Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova.
