The Magherafelt creative makes his film costume designer debut in Luca Guadagnino’s upcoming tennis drama starring Zendaya
Jonathan Anderson will take centre stage as costume designer for the highly anticipated sports drama Challengers, which features an all-star cast led by Zendaya.
The film follows the Euphoria actress in the role of Tashi, a former tennis champion turned coach, mentoring her husband for a crucial match against his ex-best friend (and her former flame). It navigates love, competition and the ever-present influence of fashion, focusing on the world of high-stakes tennis.
It marks Anderson’s first turn as a costumier for a major film, which is set to hit UK cinemas at the end of the month.
Director Luca Guadagnino, known for his visually stunning film Call Me By Your Name, praised Anderson’s contribution to the movie, which was originally tipped to open the Venice Film Festival last year but was delayed due to the SAG-AFTRA strikes.
Jonathan Anderson
“I’ve been always a big admirer of Jonathan. He’s one of the most inspiring people out there for me, and he’s also a very dear friend,” said Guadagnino.
“So when this opportunity arose, I had an instinct to call him and ask if he’d do it, and he said yes. And it was such a beautiful, out-of-the-box moment, because the savviness that he brought to the process is so intelligent and profound.
“He never tried to make a ‘designer-look movie’. You actually [have to] look so carefully and deeply [into] these particular characters, and how these people had to behave in terms of the way they look, in order to for us understand them better.”
Anderson (39), who is the son of former Ireland rugby union international Willie Anderson, said he was inspired to work on the film and was engrossed in styling the characters throughout the film’s multiple time jumps.
Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor (Photo: Warner Bros)
“Luca is an incredibly dear friend and we work very closely together. He knows more about fashion than I do,” Anderson said.
“He knows every detail and every single fitting. Every item of clothing looks natural on the characters without being too ‘designed’. It’s a look that really kind of comes from within.
“One thing that we wanted from the sections in the film when they’re younger is that, in that earlier period, there is an element of ‘obviousness’ — Oxford shirts and the kind of clichés of what these kinds of guys wore in the late ‘aughts’, what it felt like in America in terms of ‘preppy’.”
In the film’s production notes, Anderson said he took the styling of each character very seriously, with different inspirations for Tashi (Zendaya), Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor).
“Zendaya is such a great collaborator. She’s so aware of fashion and brands and she wants the costumes to truly dictate something,” added Anderson.
“For Tashi, we wanted something that really gives an idea of ‘presentation’ and winning in that time period.
“It was so fascinating working with Zendaya, how she is so plugged into exactly what she feels is needed to articulate those ideas completely.”
Challengers director Luca Guadagnino (Photo: Warner Bros)
The character of Patrick was inspired by John F Kennedy Jr, while Art had a “precise” look to his clothing on film.
Anderson added: “My take on Patrick was, he’s a character born into a very wealthy family, so there is this incredible nonchalance towards appearance.
“For the character of Art, the design revolved around this idea that when you’re successful, you have to wear it, you have to show that you’re in control by the power of the brand you choose.”
Zendaya and Josh O’Connor in Challengers (Photo: Warner Bros)
Anderson said while creating the costumes for film, which marks Zendaya’s first cinematic lead role, he became “obsessed” with the nature of tennis and how the characters change as the film timeline jumps from when the three characters first meet to when two of them are now married with a child.
“I became obsessed with the idea of on-court and off-court sports dynamics, and obsession, and how the relationship between youth culture and clothing and sport changed,” continued Anderson.
“Brands really have become a phenomenon that’s always around us. Ultimately, the style of Challengers, in terms of costume design, was looking at life and how we are surrounded and bombarded by all of that.”
Challengers’ stars Zendaya and Mike Faist in the film where they play tennis stars turned husband and wife (Photo: Warner Bros)
Despite his entry into the world of film, Anderson doesn’t appear to be stepping back from fashion any time soon, having recently celebrated over a decade at Loewe, the Spanish fashion house he joined in late 2013, a role which earned him the CFDA award for Best International Designer in 2022.
He will also reunite with Guadagnino for his next film, Queer, which stars Daniel Craig and is also due to be released this year.
Challengers will be released in UK and Ireland cinemas on April 26