IT’S the sports movie of the year – but the hottest action in Zendaya’s tennis film is off the court during a three-way kiss with two hunks.
Yet the actress says her Challengers co-stars Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor took any pressure off filming the scene by being such great blokes.
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Zendaya, 27, reveals: “How do you build the chemistry?
“Well, I think I got lucky that they’re both just lovely guys.
“They were kind and generous with their work and their time, so that made it easy.”
Her character, former tennis prodigy Tashi Duncan, is drawn into a complicated love triangle with pro Art Donaldson, portrayed by Mike, 32, and fellow player Patrick Zweig — The Crown’s Josh, 33.
They connected during hours of rehearsals and “physically challenging” tennis lessons.
She explains: “We had a tremendous amount of tennis training, we worked out beside each other.
“We did tennis training and we had rehearsal time, which is a privilege — you know, to be able to have that time to talk about the characters and really dig into it.
“And that just created more of a safety net.”
Challengers was released on Friday to critical acclaim, and Zendaya admits the movie is an “emotional rollercoaster”.
She urges viewers to keep “an open mind” about the characters, adding: “Try not to judge them too much.
“Because, ultimately, when you come back — and hopefully you decide to watch it again — your opinions will change and your ideas of them will change.
“There’s a messiness and a humanity to them.
“We’re people, we make mistakes.
“So you’ll judge them, you’ll have an opinion, you’ll come back and it will change, and then it will change again and then again.”
The movie shows Tashi first meeting her suitors at a time when she has the tennis world at her feet.
Patrick describes her as the “hottest woman alive”, while his best friend Art is similarly wowed.
Tashi promises to commit herself to whoever triumphs on court, but not before she enjoys dalliances with both men.
Zendaya says: “What I would say about this movie is that it definitely deals with themes of co-dependency and the idea of trying your best to find all those things inside yourself before you vicariously live or need other people to find those things for you.
“And I think that’s something that Tashi is struggling with.
“Her life is so dependent on using other people that, when she’s alone, I don’t think she knows quite what to do and she’s not quite happy.”
‘I’m a very shy person’
Zendaya says her character is “complex, messy and confusing” — but insists that was what made portraying her so much fun.
She adds: “That was the challenge.
“I didn’t just want her to be one dimensional or one faceted.
“I wanted to explore all the sides of this very, very complicated woman and all the nuance that comes along with her.
“It was so fun, such a dream.”
Zendaya admits that she, just like her character, enjoys being in control and loves acting because it is the one time she can truly let go.
She says with a laugh: “I’m, like, super self-critical, super hard on myself, super controlling.
“And I think this is the one thing in my life where I can be like, ‘I’m letting go, this is what I’m doing’.
“You know, feel that real freedom.
“I think, in many ways, it’s therapeutic.”
The actress was born Zendaya Maree Stoermer Coleman and has five siblings.
She was raised in Oakland, northern California, by her teacher mum Claire Stoermer and dad Kazembe Ajamu Coleman, a teacher and coach.
Zendaya discovered her love of acting while appearing in school plays and, when she was 12, her family relocated to LA so she could pursue her dreams.
Her first film role was on the 2012 Disney Channel movie, Frenemies, and she released a self-titled album a year later.
She went on to play Peter Parker’s pal Michelle Jones in a string of Spider-Man movies.
Her boyfriend, British actor Tom Holland, 27, who she lives with in a £3million home in Richmond, South West London, played the title role.
Hit movies The Greatest Showman and Dune have followed.
In 2020, Zendaya became the youngest person to win an Emmy, for best actress in a drama for playing 17-year-old drug addict Rue Bennett in the teen series Euphoria.
But she says it took years of hard graft before she was taken seriously in the industry.
She said in 2021: “For a long time I was a ‘seat filler’, as in, ‘she shows up to everything’.
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“And I was like, ‘Yeah, but I look good though! So how about that? Still on the best-dressed list!’.
“I don’t know what it is about my left leg.
“Basically, all my dresses I request to be slit on my left leg.
“And I did this step on the red carpet when I started and it makes me feel good.”
Despite dazzling on screen, the actress says she is painfully introverted and struggled at showbiz parties.
She reveals: “I had to learn how to small talk, it’s true, because I’m very shy, I’m a very shy person.
“But also, I was a very shy child and acting became the thing to help bring me out of my shell.
“It’s funny because, when I would go to these things or events or whatever, I think people thought I was cold.
“But really, I was terrified and didn’t want to talk to anybody because I didn’t know what to say.”
Zendaya believes she might not have overcome her insecurity without her family’s support.
She says: “I think the people I credit are, again, my parents.
“They didn’t know, they were just figuring it out with me.
“But they did the best they could to protect me and give me the resources and the knowledge.
“They didn’t want to hide anything from me.”
And while she might struggle with small talk, one thing she has benefited from is having a “really small circle” of confidantes.
She adds: “That is just me, my assistant, who is like a brother to me, my niece and my sisters.
“They all live ten minutes away from me. And that’s it.
“I have two friends, kind of. I would say, ‘Keep your circle small’.
“But I’m also just not that exciting and not very good at making friends, so that could be it too.
“But I’ll go with, ‘Yeah, I like to keep my circle small’.”
Zendaya admits she does not have a grand plan for the years ahead.
On what she wants to do in the future, she says: “That’s something I’m very interested in finding out and figuring out.
“But I don’t know.
“It’s weird, because I do have goals, I do have things I want to create and I want to do.
“But, in a lot of ways, I don’t — because I also have this idea that, ‘What if it doesn’t make me happy tomorrow?’.
“And that’s something my mum always used to tell me whenever I would get really stressed.
“She would just say, ‘You know we can just go back to Oakland if you want?
“I’ll go back to being a teacher, your dad can go back to coaching and we’ll just go back to regular life if that’s what you want, if that’s what you need, we can do that’.
“She would tell me all the time and I’d be like, ‘Nah mom, I’m good. I’m fine. I’m just having a moment’.”
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