Zendaya Shares How Her Family Influenced Her Performance In Challengers

We’ve seen Zendaya play a teenager on the HBO Max show Euphoria and when she signed on to play Michelle Jones in the Spider-Man movies. Now that the Emmy Award-winning actress is 27 years old, her next role involves her not only playing a tennis prodigy-turned-coach, but she’ll play a mom for the first time too. In order to prepare for her new role, the former Disney Channel star looked no further than her family for inspiration.

In the upcoming sports movie Challengers, Zendaya will play a former tennis champ who marries a fellow tennis player who’s competing against his wife’s former lover. While people were already hyped after watching the romantic sports drama’s first trailer, there’s a whole other reason to be excited. This will be the Shake It Up actress’s first time playing a mom. While Zendaya isn’t a mother herself yet, you may be wondering where she drew inspiration from.

While speaking to People at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square premiere for her movie in London, the 27-year-old star of Challengers made sure to mention some important people who helped channel her maternal instincts.

It's amazing that Zendaya was able to draw inspiration from her own family. It’s true that when the children of others are left in your care, you can’t help but feel like a mother for the moment you watch them. It also helps to witness mothers in action based on the way they interact with their own children to embody the part on screen.

Not only did Zendaya have to train herself on how to portray a mother, but how to play a tennis champion too. Director Luca Guadagnino said the Euphoria actress trained for about three months with pro tennis coach and former player Brad Gilbert who also served as the film’s consultant. The journey of transforming herself into a tennis pro wasn’t an easy one as she hated working out for the sports drama. But, she knew that it was part of the job as her character, Tashi, was supposed to be one of the best tennis players. So naturally, you have to be fit for the part.

However, the No Way Home actress laughed that her co-star Mike Faist was able to train with ease. Her other co-star Josh Connor mentioned that Faist is “an absolute machine” and loves going to the gym. It proves that exercise comes more naturally to some than others, but I’m sure all of that hard work put into training will pay off for some convincing performances on the big screen.

Through the help of her family, Zendaya was able to play a mom flawlessly in Challengers. As I’m used to seeing the now-grown actress playing teenagers, it’ll be a nice change of pace to see her playing a married woman and a mother. You can watch the 2024 movie release of Challengers in theaters on April 26th.