Everyone knows Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers for its prominent love triangle between its very attractive leads: Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist. And that’s exactly how Guadagnino intended it according to Challengers editor Marco Costa.
“There’s one particular dialogue, the first one that takes place among the three of them at the Adidas party, where we wanted to create a real triangle through the editing,” Costa shared. “To move from Art to Patrick, we always transition through Tashi. The editing clearly emphasizes her pivotal role in the triangle.”
That same edit also reinforces some of the more homoerotic elements at play within the film.
Set in the competitive world of professional tennis, Challengers stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a tennis star sidelined by a horrific injury who channels her passion and drive through Art Donaldson (Faist). O’Connor plays Art’s rival, Patrick. The film is an intense time-jumping exercise in bold filmmaking and features some of the best editing of the year.
Here, in an interview with The Contending, Costa breaks down his work on Guadagnino’s film. He surprises with a revelation about his edit when related to that fantastic Reznor and Ross score. He also talks about his shorthand with Guadagnino after working with him across several films. Additionally, he breaks down the edits required to bring the kinetic tennis matches to life.
Challengers is now streaming on Prime Video.
The Contending: You’ve worked with Luca Guadagnino on several projects now. Clearly, you’ve developed a shorthand when collaborating with him, but what is it about your working relationship that makes it so successful in your opinion?
Marco Costa: If I think back to the choice that Luca made in 2019—to entrust me with the editing of the entire HBO TV series, when I was just 27 years old—I still find it hard to believe. He believed in me and gave me the chance to work on his beautiful footage. He loves challenges and gives many opportunities to all his collaborators: he has no prejudices and is constantly open to new ideas. I was very familiar with his filmography, having always been a big fan of his. This made the editing process with him easier: being able to understand how to interpret his footage. He has a very specific editing style in mind, and I have always followed it. Every cut has a meaning, every cut has a value. Even when transitioning from the hyper-kinetic editing of Challengers to the more analytical editing of We Are Who We Are, the underlying concept of the grammar remains the same, and it’s also what Luca seeks when choosing the shots on set.
The Contending: There are multiple eras within the film’s narrative. Do you change the way you cut certain scenes depending on the era in which the action takes place?
Marco Costa: In a way, yes, but only because the way Luca shot the different eras is different. The 2019 timeline, meaning the challenge between Art and Patrick in New Rochelle, has a more baroque style and evolves more and more until it reaches the most extreme point, which is the final scene. It’s much more intricate, with each scene in this sequence always bringing new ideas. On the other hand, the matches from the past are almost always seen from the audience’s perspective. The viewpoint is certainly more objective compared to New Rochelle.
The Contending: You’re given this what I would assume to be extraordinary challenge of editing tennis matches. What were some of your guiding principles when editing the tennis matches outside of the finale (we’ll get to that in a bit)?
Marco Costa: On the first day of work, Luca told me that he wanted a modernist style of editing. He wanted to create complex meanings and challenge the audience’s narrative expectations, encouraging active reflection. Since Challengers is based on the shape of a triangle, we continuously sought out this figure in the editing: there’s a strong principle of geometry and symmetry. We created symmetries and complementary movements, imagining the tennis court net as a mirror where the characters reflect each other. One movement responds to another movement, and at other times, one movement completes the other. Additionally, we played a lot with the deconstruction of time through sudden acceleration and slowdowns: as you saw, we had a lot of fun stretching time with slow motion. And finally, the tennis in Challengers feels like a true dance. Especially when you have music like that, you can’t help but transform the tennis court into a dance floor.
The Contending: When you have such a fantastic score by Reznor and Ross, did you find yourself cutting scenes to specific beats?
Marco Costa: This might seem absurd and surprising, especially for a film like this, but during the editing phase, we edited entirely without music. We cut the tennis scenes according to the timing and rhythms we wanted. I knew well the type of music that Luca wanted, so we had it in our minds. We absolutely didn’t want to use temp music because we fear it can be very influential: you get used to a piece of music that you’ll eventually have to give up in favor of another, and often you don’t like the new one, forcing the composers to make a version similar to the temp music you had in the cut. The method of using temp music completely ruins the creative process of editing and composing.
Additionally, we initially edited many tennis scenes completely mute. Even without sound. It’s a method I find very effective as it prevents you from being distracted by the still rough sound of the direct recording, and in my opinion, it helps you see the scene more clearly in its essence. When editing these scenes knowing that a certain type of music will be added, you try to create fertile moments for the music with the editing: points that the composers can use to create variations.
The Contending: Much has been written and discussed about the triangle between Tashi, Art, and Patrick, particularly the homoerotic subtext. Does your editing reinforce or underscore the power dynamics of these key relationships?
Marco Costa: Yes, the editing aimed to go in that direction thanks to the way Luca shot the film. There’s one particular dialogue, the first one that takes place among the three of them at the Adidas party, where we wanted to create a real triangle through the editing. To move from Art to Patrick, we always transition through Tashi. The editing clearly emphasizes her pivotal role in the triangle. Every transition from Art to Patrick, or vice versa, always passes through Tashi. This visually establishes her as the focal point of the interactions, increasing the tension between the two men.
Then, after establishing this tension, only at specific moments, we choose to transition between Art and Patrick without going through Tashi to affirm the idea of a triangle where all points touch and are connected to each other. It’s bidirecional.
Regarding the subtext between Patrick and Art, the continuous search for symmetry and complementarity in the editing only serves to reinforce this theme.
The Contending: You have talked about the final tennis match that closes the film being the most complex and longest-in-the-edit sequence. What was most challenging about those moments? What did you want to leave the audience with as the film closes on Art and Patrick’s embrace?
Marco Costa: Editing a tennis match without seeing the balls, without seeing the actors, and sometimes even without the rackets is definitely a challenge! Some of the balls were real, but many were recreated in CGI, so I had to set the timing of each hit through the editing. The rackets weren’t always there because if the camera was close to the actor, there was a risk that the racket could hit the camera during a movement, which was too dangerous and restricted the actor’s freedom of movement.
For each shot, we had takes with both the real actors and with their doubles, who were professional players. But I must say that we almost always used the actors. They were very skilled and had trained every day for three months before filming.
The final scene had to be a perfect symphony between editing, sound design, and music. All the elements had to be perfectly harmonized, and I think that—if we achieved that—it’s definitely thanks to Luca’s impeccable direction.
As I mentioned earlier, the final scene is the one with the most intricate structure in the whole film. It had to be the pinnacle and the moment of greatest climax: we aimed to ignite, inflame, and excite the audience. Even the deconstruction of time during the hug: stretching and repeating the movement several times to fully emphasize that joy. There was a lot of footage for this scene, most of it in slow motion. The slow motion gave us an extra opportunity to play with and take the timing we absolutely wanted. We wanted the audience to fully experience this moment. In the end, it’s a bit like a showdown. It’s reminiscent of the Mexican standoff in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. There, the suspension of time is crucial.
