According to Josh O’Connor, his intimate scenes with Zendaya and Mike Faist in ‘Challengers’ weren’t sexy.
The actor told Vanity Fair that sex scenes are ‘strange’ and talked about ‘Challengers,’ “It’s the least sexy thing in the world. You can ask Mike Faist and Zendaya about that.”
He added, “It might look sexy onscreen, but in reality, it’s the same as a fight sequence, a bit of action or stunt, or a dance. It’s a very choreographed, rehearsed thing, and you’re surrounded in a room full of people—someone’s holding a boom microphone and camera and lights.”
In ‘Challengers,’ Zendaya’s character, Tashi, is a tennis player involved in a love triangle with Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (O’Connor). One key scene shows the three kissing in a hotel room.
In October, Zendaya shared that a few tennis players thanked her for making the sport ‘sexy’ after ‘Challengers’ came out. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Zendaya said, “I’ve had a couple tennis players say, ‘Thanks for making tennis sexy’ or ‘making tennis cool.’ And I was like, I feel like tennis has always been cool and sexy, but I’ll take it. A lot of people have tried to get into tennis now, so I think that’s fun.”
Because of the scenes in the film, Zendaya made sure her parents were ready for what they would see. The actress said in April, “They know it’s a Rated-R movie. Walking into this, I was like, ‘If you can’t handle the heat, get out the kitchen.’ But I forewarned them.”
She went on, “It was honestly my favorite part of the night ’cause I’ve seen the movie many times. I know when the scenes are coming so when those scenes were happening I just was watching my family because they were behind me, so I just watched them the whole time, it was hilarious.”
O’Connor will work with Guadagnino again on a queer romance called ‘Separate Rooms,’ based on a novel by Pier Vittorio Tondelli. O’Connor will play Leo, an Italian writer grieving the death of his musician boyfriend.
