Josh O’Connor channels Nick Kyrgios in ‘Challengers’ movie with co-star Zendaya

Challengers star Josh O’Connor revealed elements of his character portrayed in the tennis-themed drama were inspired by the sport’s own Nick Kyrgios and his brand of “good trouble.”

“There’s something really entertaining about Kyrgios,” O’Connor explained to Tennis Channel’s Tracy Austin alongside co-stars Zendaya and Mike Faist. “But my love of him as a tennis player comes from this film, because it was about, ‘How do we find a character I can take stuff from for Patrick?’”

In addition to channeling the 2022 Wimbledon finalist, O’Connor, who hails from Southampton, also drew borrowed from the personalities that pervade British football to create the character of Patrick Zweig, a brash, at-times arrogant athlete who achieved early success despite an unorthodox technique.

“It was more than the tennis playing. It was the in-between, when he’s sitting down and resting,” O’Connor continued. “He’ll do very provocative things that I’d find both terrible and endearing.”

All three stars agreed that the tennis playing itself was indeed the biggest “challenge” in shooting Challengers, a film directed by Call Me By Your Name’s Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes.

“I speak for all three of us when I say that tennis is not what we do for a living and it’s not something you can just pick up,” said Zendaya, who plays Tashi Duncan, the single-minded prodigy at the heart of the film’s love triangle with O’Connor and Faist. “It’s not an easy sport unless you’ve been training since you were four years old.”

“It’s impossible because this sport is so nuanced and so specific in terms of the technique and the format, and making sure every alignment is perfect,” agreed Faist. “It’s about drilling those physical movements to the point where you don’t have to think about them, and there’s a step by step thing to follow in order to go and play the game in a flow state. It’s impossible for us to be great tennis players but that was the challenge of it.“

Challengers debuts in theaters on Friday, April 26.