‘Challengers’ star Josh O’Connor reacts after film’s Academy Awards snub

Challengers star Josh O’Connor says he doesn’t mind that the buzzy, tennis-themed film didn’t receive any Academy Award nominations.

The snub sent movie fans into a spiral, especially as the film’s acclaimed musical score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross made it an early Oscars shoo-in. But in a recent interview with IndieWire, O’Connor, who plays Patrick Zweig and starred alongside Zendaya (Tashi Duncan) and Mike Faist (Art Donaldson), gave a diplomatic response to all the online discourse.

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“All the nominations are so good this year,” O’Connor said. “There’s so many great films, but then I do think that every year. I’m always amazed by what artists create. I don’t mind.

“It’s cool … this year two movies that I really love, Lucky Mirror and Challengers, I’m thrilled that people liked them and got to see them.”

Directed by Luca Guadagnino, Challengers captured tennis fans’ attention as the flashy love triangle drama was set on the ATP Challenger Tour—all with surprising attention to detail. But it landed on critics’ radar due to its catchy techno soundtrack, earning it numerous accolades during the current awards season.

Challengers racked up four nominations at the Golden Globes, including for Best Motion Picture and a Best Actress in Musical or Comedy nod for Zendaya, with Reznor and Ross taking home the award for Best Original Score. The music is also nominated for a Grammy and Critics’ Choice Award.

But controversially, the film was completely panned by the Academy and didn’t receive any nominations in any category, puzzling movie critics and fans alike.

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“If we’re judging movie scores by how much their movie’s effect depends on them, this score should have skipped the nomination stage and gone straight to a win,” writes Slate’s Rebecca Onion in a piece calling Challengers “the Oscar snub I will never forgive.”

According to Vulture, a combination of the film’s early-season release and relative lack of award-season campaigning could have doomed its Oscars bid: Academy voters tend to have a short memory, and the film didn’t make the marketing push necessary to keep it top-of-mind like bigger budget productions.

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Fans of the film will have to settle for its status as a cult favorite instead: Challengers and its score launched a thousand memes, with some (see above) even going viral in the tennis world and beyond.

The Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, March 2.