It Turns Out 1 Of Challengers' Most Iconic Scenes Wasn't Even In The Original Script

Challengers director Luca Guadagnino has revealed the show’s stand-out scene almost never happened.

The sports drama features Zendaya, The Crown’s Josh O’Connor and Broadway performer Mike Faist as a trio of burgeoning tennis players who become embroiled in a complicated love triangle that dominates both their professional and personal lives for more than a decade.

As soon as the trailer was released last year, anticipation for Challengers was high, particularly over a snippet that occurs early on in the film, in which the trio’s characters become embroiled in a three-way kiss.

However, while the sequence might already be considered one of the film’s most iconic moments, Luca has admitted it wasn’t even part of the original story.

“I don’t think that was in the script at the beginning. Not at all,” he told Entertainment Weekly.

“We discussed at length with [screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes] the concept that the [love] triangle needs to flesh out the possibility that all the corners touch – that if you’re jealous of someone, you’re not jealous of your partner, you’re jealous also not to be picked by the rival.

“You want to be the object of the affection of the rival, so you’re jealous of not being part of it as much as you are jealous of your partner being chosen.”

The Call Me By Your Name filmmaker added: “The idea [is] that Tashi can see what they don’t want to see or they cannot see, which is this incredible attraction that they have not only for her but also for one another.

“And so Justin made the very funny scene, wrote beautiful dialogue, and I thought that the mundanity of this hotel room in Queens was quite touching in portraying youth.”

Last month, Josh made headlines when he told Vanity Fair how much of the immediately-iconic bedroom scene featured an “element of improvisation”.

The Emmy winner explained: “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. We all kind of figured out, ‘how are we going to do this? How does this work?’.”

“There is an element of improvisation with it. It was fairly organic,” he added.

“We did little things, like, when they’re sitting on the floor and she 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.”