A love triangle set in the competitive world of professional tennis, Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” wasn’t just an unexpected, euphoric cinematic experience for moviegoers. Josh O’Connor, who plays Patrick, a former star tennis player trying to recapture his once-celebrated form, says the first time he saw it with an audience, he felt like he’d walked out of a rave. “It was such a buzz, and it had exactly the effect you wanted, which is you just felt exhausted,” he says. “You’ve been through eight or 12 rounds in a boxing ring. I suspect, knowing Luca, that was his plan all along.”
Best known for his Emmy Award-winning turn as a young Prince Charles on “The Crown,” O’Connor first bonded with Guadagnino three years before while working on a short film about Aston Martin. The duo stayed in touch over the years, waiting for the right project to collaborate on. When the Italian filmmaker eventually pitched “Challengers” to him, O’Connor was already well aware of it: He’d met the film’s screenwriter, Justin Kuritzkes, on a “friend date,” and the playwright had sent him the script to consider.
“I read it, and it was amazing,” O’Connor recalls. “He was like, ‘What role can you imagine yourself playing?’ And I was like, ‘Truthfully, Justin, neither. There are actors out there who could do this. I don’t think I can.’ And then it was maybe a year after that that Luca reached out to me.”
O’Connor wasn’t hesitant because he couldn’t play tennis. He was, in fact, “terrified” about that, but actors constantly have to learn new skills. That’s just part of the job. The task of projecting Patrick’s seemingly insatiable confidence concerned him the most. Even if, internally, the character of Patrick was anything but that.
“He’s desperate for friendship,” O’Connor says of Patrick. “He’s desperate for meaningful relationships outside of tennis, and he’s competitive, but he’s all these things that once you start scratching the surface, you discover all sorts about the character that is more interesting.”
And yet, professional boot camp or not, even O’Connor couldn’t ignore how important the level of tennis was to the story. Mike Faist, who portrays Art, Patrick’s onetime friend and rival, is an experienced and, in O’Connor’s opinion, great player. Zendaya, who plays the object of the boys’ affection, Tashi, has to convince viewers she is a once-in-a-generation women’s player. Moreover, the narrative is propelled by the match that runs throughout the movie, and every training session that’s shown demonstrates where these characters are emotionally with one another. So, yes, O’Connor may have thought he “sucked,” but the cast’s ability to suspend disbelief on the court mattered.
“I turned up on the first day, and Zendaya and I looked at each other like, ‘Oh, s—, we’re screwed. We dunno what we’re doing here.’ And I think that was a big shock to the system for sure,” O’Connor recalls. But they had former tennis pro Brad Gilbert coaching them and their own personal coaches. “And, if you think about it, six hours a day for three weeks, you just settle into it,” he says. “So, it didn’t feel like a huge monster task.”
O’Connor felt more apprehensive about a sexually charged sauna scene between Art and Patrick. He loved how it was written on the page but found it difficult to comprehend where the two characters stood with each other.
“I think Tashi and Patrick have the same kind of goal near the end of the movie, which is like, ‘Let’s get Art back, let’s get our friend back to what he was.’ But the added complication is that Art screwed up Patrick’s relationship with Tashi,” O’Connor reflects. “I remember feeling like I don’t know where he is at that point,” he adds, noting that’s “kind of true of any film.”
In the end, the actor says, “It just flowed very easily.”
Production on the movie was completed almost 2½ years ago. Its release was then delayed seven months due to the 2023 Screen Actors Guild strike. If you’re wondering whether O’Connor has picked up a tennis racket since then, the short answer is no. The long answer is that he attempted to play pickleball last year with the crew of an upcoming film. The results were not ideal.
“I was like, ‘Oh, that sounds fun. I bet I’m probably quite good at that because I had all this time with Brad,’” he recalls. “I went and joined them, and I was so bad. I was kind of shocked that I was so bad. I seemingly haven’t picked up anything. It’s such a tragedy.”
