Zendaya admits intimate three-way scene in recent movie was more like a ‘nine-way kiss’ on set

Sure, last year we had Barbenheimer and Timothée Chalamet dancing about as Wonka and The Super Mario Bros. Movie making a whopper billion worldwide.

But 2024 has also been a big one for going to the cinema from the recent drops of Wicked and Gladiator II to Hugh Grant’s first horror film, Deadpool & Wolverine and of course, Zendaya in a steamy tennis flick.

With its release having been postponed, Challengers finally dropped back in April and had people hooked and chatting about some of the intimate scenes.

I mean, the trailer got enough tongues wagging to begin with.

And having been one of the big talking points for fans, Zendaya admitted the intimate three-way scene in the film was more like a ‘nine-way kiss’ on set.

So, in case you’ve still not seen Challengers (you can stream it on Prime Video), let’s get some context.

The romantic sports drama follows a love triangle between an injured tennis star-turned-coach, Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), her tennis champ husband Art (Mike Faist) and his ex-friend and her ex-boyfriend, a low-circuit tennis player Patrick (Josh O’Connor).

We see them across 13 years of their relationships from young teen tennis stars to the men playing a tense match on the ATP Challenger Tour.

The steamy scenes in Challengers were a big talking point when the trailer for the film dropped (Warner Bros.)

On that first night, Tashi meets the boys following her win at the Junior US Open, she joins them in their hotel room where this three-way kiss takes place. You know, the picture you’ve seen all over the place for the past year.

And now, during an Actors on Actors interview with Nicole Kidman for Variety, Zendaya opened up about the process of filming the scene.

This came up when the stars were discussing the difference between being spontaneous or following a pre-decided plan during shooting.

“You can tell if someone’s thinking about what they’re going to say or what they’re going to do with their hand,” said Zendaya.

“I’ve caught myself doing that, when you dissociate mid-take. Or you start thinking: ‘Why did I just do that with my eye? That was a really weird choice.’”

The 28-year-old went on to say she has been ‘asked a lot about the three-way kiss scene’ in Challengers.

But, she explained: “Really, it’s a four-, five-, six-, seven-, eight-, nine-way kiss, because there’s so many people. There’s a camera coming at us at a certain time.

“I know that when I go from Mike to Josh, when the camera comes in, I gotta move back. There’s so many things at play.”

Ah, the reality of movie magic really does take away from it all, right?

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