‘I had to pretend to do it in front of a camera with an audience’: Zendaya shares what ‘terrified’ her while filming ‘Challengers’

You would think there is little that fazes Zendaya on a movie set, but her latest collaboration with Call Me My Your Name and Bones and All director Luca Guadagnino definitely lived up to its title. In Challengers, the young starlet pays a tennis champion-turned coach and, for that, Zendaya had to actually learn to play the sport.

“I’m terrified,” the Emmy-winning actress told Elle about her experience on set pretending to play tennis. Despite three months of training where she learned the basics of footwork, arm movement, and stance, Zendaya still felt embarrassed when it was time to put it to practice on camera.

“The more I had to pretend to do tennis in front of a camera with an audience, the more terrified I felt,” she shared, jokingly adding that she wasn’t even using a real ball. We wonder whether that didn’t make it all the more difficult.

In the film, her character, Tashi Duncan, has to play the U.S. Open, which means the day those scenes were filmed, Zendaya was playing tennis for an audience. The whole thing turned out to be more of a challenge than she thought. “I’m just doing the form and footwork and getting my swing right and doing it in front of a whole bunch of people as if it’s the U.S. Open, and I’m terrified,” she continued.

Tashi eventually suffers a career-ending injury and turns to coaching, at which point she signs up her husband Art, played by West Side Story‘s Mike Faist, for a Challenger event. The film turns the heat meter all the way up when Art’s opponent turns out to be Patrick (The Crown‘s Josh O’Connor), his former best friend, and Tashi’s former lover. Love triangles and threesomes ensue.

Zendaya credited co-stars Faist and O’Connor with motivating her to work out in preparation for the role. Since the actress isn’t the biggest fan of hitting the gym, the laughs her on-screen beaus provided were entirely welcome.

Challengers was one of the most anticipated films of the year before its release date was pushed to April 26, 2024, as a result of the studios refusing to negotiate with writers and actors amid a historic double strike that has basically put Hollywood on hold. As for Zendaya, she will probably be relieved that the world won’t have to see her tennis skills so soon (though we’re sure she’s as great as always).