Interview: Editor Marco Costa Discusses ‘Challengers’

Luca Guadagnino‘s Challengers was initially slated to release in the fall of 2023, with a world premiere at the Venice Film Festival set. However, the dual WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes caused a delay until April 27, 2024, when it finally bowed out in cinemas worldwide. Our own editor Joey Magidson loved it, too, raving about it here.

For editor Marco Costa, who spoke to Awards Radar on Zoom, he admitted that he was surprised at how wild the audience reactions were to the film when it was ultimately released but explained that Guadagnino wanted Challengers to feel like a party in the cinema:

“When we were in the editing room, Luca told me, “I want people to dance with this movie.” That was the direction Luca gave to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for the score. So, when it was released, it was a great joy to watch this movie with other people who enjoyed it, especially when we created this atmosphere of joy in the editing.”

While Challengers focuses on the sport of tennis, Guadagnino and Costa did not approach the movie as a traditional ‘sports film,’ preferring to create a modernist editorial style for the central love triangle between Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor):

“When I read the script of Challengers, I said, “Oh, wow, this is a movie about tennis.” However, Luca told me, “No, my movie is not about tennis. It’s about people.” And he was right. I kept this phrase in mind during the editing process. 

When I was editing the movie, Cabaret by Bob Fosse inspired me, because the dance scenes are very similar to the the tennis scenes in Challengers. There is a strong idea of dance behind the tennis. On the first day of editing, Luca came to the editing room and said, “Okay, we need to talk about the style and language of this movie.” I say, “Luca, what kind of language do you have in mind? What kind of editing?”  He said, “I want to do a modernist style of editing.”

I didn’t know what he meant until he showed me a picture of a building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and told me that his film had to be like this. I completely understood what he was referring to because you can see the fantastic geometry in that building. There is a symmetry and an idea. If you look at the editing of Challengers, there is a lot of geometry. We try to create shapes because the script is based on a love triangle where all the points are connected.”

So, how did they approach this new style of editing? Below, you’ll be able to listen to our conversation with Marco, where we break down the film’s non-linear narrative, how they found the right rhythm for its tennis sequences, and edit the entire movie without temp music. As much as the music in Challengers plays a big role in how the story is shaped, Costa and Guadagnino chose not to edit the movie with any music before the first cut.

We also (very) briefly discussed Queer at the beginning of our conversation, which Costa also worked on alongside Justin Kuritzkes (interviewed here by Joey), Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Ross, who all collaborated with Luca on Challengers.

You can listen to the full conversation with Marco below and stream Challengers on Prime Video today:

[Some of the quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity]