Challengers' Josh O'Connor Improvised This Moment In The Hotel Scene

A whole lot of moviegoers this past weekend probably just became enthusiastic tennis fans, so it's important that they know just how well the sport lends itself to the type of thrill-a-minute drama on display throughout "Challengers." (Be sure to read /Film's review by Witney Seibold if you haven't yet.) As Zendaya's Tashi Duncan proves on multiple occasions, the art of being really good at hitting a ball with a racket can feel like an interpretive dance ... provided you have the right partner. Both players tune out the larger world in the heat of the moment and, in Tashi's words, "go somewhere beautiful" together. In that light, it's no wonder the actual filming of director Luca Guadagnino's latest movie naturally lent itself to moments of spontaneity and improvisation between the main trio of actors.

If there's one moment everybody walked out of the theater buzzing about — besides the provocative ending, of course — it was the steamy hotel scene plastered at the front and center of all the marketing. Caught up in a seductive love triangle that ends up consuming much of their adult lives, tennis players Tashi, Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), and Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor) end up taking their competitive streak from the court to the bedroom. Much like any would-be romance in real life, it's messy, complex, and utterly enthralling. But the sequence as we all saw it ended up boosted to another level entirely, thanks to a bit of improv on the part of Josh O'Connor. While the obvious guess would be that this had something to do with the actual three-way kiss, the reality is a little more subtle than that.

There were certainly no faults in these stars. As much as Zendaya's star power brought crowds in droves to see "Challengers" in theaters, both Mike Faist and Josh O'Connor deserve plenty of credit for bringing their A-game as the pair of white twinks who form two cornerstones of this love triangle. While the courtship for their respective characters underwent their fair share of ups and downs, the process of shooting their most crucial scenes in the film was anything but. In a recent profile over at Vanity Fair (via Yahoo! News), O'Connor opened up about how a spur-of-the-moment acting choice resulted in an even stronger — and hornier — scene than what was already on the page:

"There is an element of improvisation with it. It was fairly organic. We did little things, like, when they're sitting on the floor and [Tashi] goes onto the bed, I was up in a flash and not holding back. That came from us knowing our characters well, and knowing the dynamics between the three of us."

"Challengers" definitely makes a meal of the visible, ah, excitement on the faces of both Art and Patrick while gazing at Tashi in the early going, but it turns out the actual kissing portion of their tryst already existed in writer Justin Kuritzkes's script. While it is poor form to kiss and tell, the actor did exactly that to explain how director Luca Guadagnino envisioned the hotel scene. "Luca had a very clear idea of what happens on the bed. The idea of me and Mike, with Zendaya in the middle — this idea that it's kissing, kissing, and then it turns into this three-way kiss — and then suddenly Mike and I are kissing. That was very clear."

"Challengers" is currently playing in theaters.