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‘Challengers’ Screenwriter on the ‘Homoerotic’ Nature of Tennis and How Zendaya’s Child Stardom Informs the Film
'Challengers' screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes discusses what drew him to write a tennis movie, the racial dynamics of the love triangle and more.
Though he was already an accomplished playwright and novelist (and the husband of Celine Song, the writer-director who provided last year’s buzziest love triangle with “Past Lives”), “ Challengers ” was Kuritzkes’ first screenplay and began as a document on his computer that no one was paying him to finish. But in 2021, “Challengers” appeared on the Black List, an annual roundup of the most popular unproduced scripts in Hollywood, which helped him sell it to producers Amy Pascal and Rachel O’Connor. Pascal brought Zendaya aboard the tennis movie as star and producer after first working with the actor on Marvel’s “Spider-Man” trilogy, and soon, “Call Me By Your Name” director Luca Guadagnino was attached as well.
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