My thing was honesty. I wanted blatant honesty if it looked ridiculous or they weren’t buying something and I needed to adjust. Through talking to professional players, learning the game, watching and going to matches—so much tennis—those are the things you really absorb. It makes it maybe even more daunting because you realize there’s so many details.
Faist: It’s a game about form. If you don’t follow the step-by-step instructions and your body isn’t in the right position…that’s what the game is about. How consistent are you with your fundamentals? Will you allow yourself, mentally, to stick with those routines and not get in your own head? It’s a very challenging sport.
O’Connor: And it’s particularly tough if you’re coming to it later in life.
Zendaya: Absolutely.
O’Connor: If you learn those fundamentals from an early age, it’s just there.
Zendaya: That was the thing. I couldn’t play with actual tennis balls. As soon as that ball is coming at you at whatever miles per hour, the form is out the window! Like, I just learned this form three days ago! I’m just trying to hit it! That’s when I realized, “Okay, let me not focus on the ball. Let me focus on my form.”
Josh, your character has a pretty funky serve. How long did it take you to get that down? Did it feel alien the entire time?
O’Connor: The fortunate position that I was in, it didn’t feel alien because it all felt alien! I was able to be like, I guess this is how you serve. In the script it was very clear that Patrick had this odd, unique serve. Before I got to Boston to start training with Brad, I was thinking in my head about what it could be. I had all these images of what I imagined it would be.
When we got to Brad, I wanted to talk about the serve. How can we make it weird and distinctive? He was like, “I’ve got just the thing.” He went on his laptop, and he had saved all these YouTube videos. He shows me the serve of this one guy and is going, “Isn’t that crazy?” It’s like…just a serve. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what every serve looks like. But something that’s completely crazy to a tennis player is just a serve to us!
So then I was like, “Brad, I think we need to think outside the box.” We started to plan it out together. There’s a guy who puts his racket behind his back and goes, one…two…boom. We figured it out that way.
Mike, your character wears that athletic tape that professional athletes wear all the time now. Did they explain to you what that actually does?
Faist: Yeah, I don’t know. I believe it’s supposed to hold things in place. If you have shin splints or something, it’s supposed to pull the muscle into the right position.
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