When Total Film meets Zendaya and The Crown’s Josh O’Connor in London in June they are good-naturedly trash-talking their third wheel, Mike Faist, who can’t make this chat due to his commitment to West End stage show Brokeback Mountain. ‘Oh, you heard? Terrible!’ Zendaya – or ‘Zee’ as her co-stars call her – jokes with a laugh before talking proudly of her absent colleague’s performance as Jack Twist, which she, her boyfriend Tom Holland and O’Connor had seen the night before. Faist, when we meet a few days later between shows, keeps up the banter and teasing when he laughs about O’Connor’s preparation (or lack thereof) for playing a champion tennis player.
The dynamic between the three is very much in keeping with the chemistry and vibe at the heart of Luca Guadagnino’s follow-up to cannibal romance , a switch in direction that he describes as ‘a fairly fizzy, sexy movie about the world of tennis’. Written by playwright turned screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, charts the relationship between best-friend players Patrick (O’Connor) and Art (Faist) as they meet tennis prodigy Tashi (Zendaya) in their training teens and interchange as her boyfriend/friend. Years later, when Art is a top seed in a crisis and Tashi now his wife and coach, the duo run into Patrick again, who’s struggling to make ends
