Zendaya will soon be seen in a new sports movie, along with West Side Story’s Mike Faist and The Crown’s Josh O’Connor. In order to prepare, the three stars of Luca Guadagnino’s tennis movie Challengers attended an “acting/tennis summer camp,” which along with tennis training, also involved watching the Pixar movie Ratatouille, for some reason.
Speaking to Total Film magazine before the actors’ strike, Zendaya said; “It was an acting/tennis summer camp. You wake up really early. Everybody’s like, ‘OK, let’s stretch together.’ We stretch, we play PE games…” O’Connor interjected; “Eat eggs, chicken and broccoli…” Zendaya continued; “Broccoli! And work out, and play tennis, rehearse all day. It was a dream in that respect, you get paid to do what you would want to do anyway.”
Faist added; “That’s kind of what we do as actors. You just kind of learn new skills with everything, and each time it just feels like, ‘OK, what kind of camp is this going to be?’ And the three of us, really, we had a lot of fun training together and working together. It was definitely a memorable summer.”
It wasn’t all tennis and chemistry, either – this summer camp also included movie nights watching Ratatouille. “Some light-heartedness to balance some of the talk and the energy of these characters,” Zendaya laughed. Challengers was initially going to be released during the fall awards season, before the end of 2023, but has now been pushed to April 2024 – sob.
Interestingly, we have a theory that someone at Pixar is a fan of Challengers director Luca Guadagnino, and specifically 2017’s Call Me By Your Name. When Luca was released in 2021, the internet had fun pointing out the parallels between the animated movie about two bosom buddies in an Italian fishing village and the romance movie starring Zendaya’s Dune co-star Timothee Chalamet. And, Pixar’s next movie, set for release in 2024 is literally called Elio – which is the name of Chalamet’s character in Call Me By Your Name!
Check out our guide to the best drama movies and find out the current status of the Dune Part Two release date.