Interview With "Challengers" Screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes

[00:00:00] You are listening to the Next Best Picture Podcast and this is my interview with the screenwriter for challengers, Justin Kuritsky.

[00:00:30] What are you going to do now?

[00:00:35] Unfortunately, my only skill in life is hitting a ball with a racket.

[00:00:38] I want you to be my coach.

[00:00:40] I want you to be my coach.

[00:00:43] How often does this happen? Going after the same girl?

[00:00:46] Come here.

[00:00:48] Which one of us?

[00:00:50] Justin, I am so so happy to be talking with you about challengers, a film that I know many of us ever since the Dennis Bump had been eagerly anticipating getting released here.

[00:01:01] I want to first start off by asking you, this is not based on any pre-existing material. Where did the original idea for the story come from for you?

[00:01:10] I had not previously been that much of a sports fan or a tennis fan and then in 2018, I just happened to turn on the US Open.

[00:01:18] And it was a match between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka in the final.

[00:01:24] And there was this very controversial call from the umpire where he said that Serena Williams had received coaching from the sidelines.

[00:01:31] And she immediately got very upset and said, I didn't do that. I would never do that.

[00:01:35] And I had never heard that rule before, but it struck me right away as intensely cinematic that you're all alone on the court.

[00:01:43] And there's only one person in the stands who cares as much about what happens to you as you do, but you can't talk to them.

[00:01:50] And immediately I started thinking, well, what if you really needed to talk about something that was beyond tennis?

[00:01:56] You know, that was about your lives and what if the stakes of this match were something that nobody in the audience could understand,

[00:02:04] but we might understand watching the movie? And what could those stakes be?

[00:02:09] What could possibly be at stake here? And how would you communicate the tension of that using film?

[00:02:14] And that was kind of the first kernel.

[00:02:17] And then parallel to that, I started watching a lot of tennis and found myself becoming like a legitimate obsessive tennis fan.

[00:02:26] And I started reading everything I could find about tennis and watching every match.

[00:02:31] And that led me to watching Challenger events, which are, you know, they're still the major leagues.

[00:02:38] They're still part of the ATP tour, but you're playing for a couple hundred bucks, a couple ranking points.

[00:02:47] And most of the guys are losing money to be there.

[00:02:50] And that struck me as a really interesting place to ground a sports movie.

[00:02:55] And it felt like that would be a setting where what I really wanted from the movie, which was that the stakes of the match were not really the stakes of the movie.

[00:03:05] That was how it all began for me.

[00:03:08] There's a battle on the court and then there is a battle outside the court, right?

[00:03:12] You never know what's going on with these athletes.

[00:03:15] You've got these three characters here with Art, Tashi and Patrick.

[00:03:21] Which one would you say you see more of yourself in?

[00:03:26] I don't know. I mean, you bring yourself to all of them because you're writing them.

[00:03:31] I mean, I think structurally I have much more in common with the two boys than I do with Tashi.

[00:03:36] Sure.

[00:03:37] You know, those two boys are like a lot of the boys I grew up with and like a lot of the people I know.

[00:03:44] So I felt a little bit like, there's more I have in common with those guys.

[00:03:51] But you still have to bring a lot of yourself to everybody in order to make them feel like real people.

[00:03:57] Absolutely. That is true.

[00:03:58] And they're very multi-dimensional.

[00:04:00] We spend a great deal amount of time with just primarily these three characters throughout the course of this film.

[00:04:06] You mentioned structure before too.

[00:04:08] I want to talk about that.

[00:04:09] This film does have obviously a nonlinear structure to it.

[00:04:13] Did that come from the page?

[00:04:14] Was that found in editing?

[00:04:15] How did that all come to bay?

[00:04:17] No, that was always how the movie was going to operate.

[00:04:20] That really came out of the impulse I had to write the movie in the first place,

[00:04:25] which was that I was watching a lot of tennis.

[00:04:27] And I started asking myself, what could I write that would be as exciting as tennis?

[00:04:33] And what would make tennis even better?

[00:04:35] And for me the question of what would make tennis even better was answered by this desire I had to know exactly what was at stake for the players at each point.

[00:04:44] You know, if I could be watching a match and then somebody could whisper in my ear,

[00:04:47] here's why he's really upset right now.

[00:04:49] Or here's why that point occurred so much.

[00:04:51] Here's what they're thinking.

[00:04:53] So I always knew that the structure of the movie was going to be that we're dropped into this match.

[00:04:59] And then the context of how we got there is filled in as we go.

[00:05:03] And that's how the screenplay is structured.

[00:05:06] I love the callback especially to, I mean like I had the biggest grin in my face when Patrick makes that gesture with his racket.

[00:05:14] Or it's the end of the film to art.

[00:05:16] I won't reveal what it is but that's just such a great example of what you're talking about where there's a seed that's planted early on in the film.

[00:05:24] And you find a way to bring it back and have it make sense.

[00:05:27] Yeah, well I'm really drawn to that kind of a thing in movies generally where the audience is rewarded for paying attention.

[00:05:36] You know, or the audience feels like they're in on a secret that the other people only the main characters know.

[00:05:43] And the other people in the scene don't know.

[00:05:45] You know, so I'm glad that that did something for you.

[00:05:49] You find out that the film is going to Venice.

[00:05:53] You find out a few weeks later, film was not going to Venice due to the strikes.

[00:05:57] What is going through your mind when you hear that news?

[00:06:00] Listen it was obviously a bummer to know find out the movie is going to be delayed.

[00:06:05] I think it would have been an even bigger bummer to release this movie and put it out into the world without the actors being able to support it.

[00:06:14] You know, and I wouldn't have been able to do things like this either because I was still on strike.

[00:06:20] So it hurt but it was also I knew we were going to be.

[00:06:25] I knew whenever we released the movie, we were going to do it in the best way we could.

[00:06:29] And it feels in a way more exciting to be finally doing it now than it would have been to do it then.

[00:06:35] So I'm happy how it all shook out.

[00:06:38] Your wife last award season ran into a bunch of times.

[00:06:42] Congratulations by the way, I'm sure it was a very happy household for the both of you.

[00:06:46] Thank you for various reasons.

[00:06:48] I'm also just curious to know, do the two of you have any kind of one upsmanship when it comes to writing or just your work in general?

[00:06:57] No, we really support each other and it really does feel like her success is my success and vice versa.

[00:07:07] When you really love somebody and love their work and are inspired by their work.

[00:07:14] It's exciting to you to see that work being recognized for the great work that it is because you want to live in a I want to make movies in a world that loves past lives.

[00:07:26] You know, I want to put movies out into the world that received past lives the way it was received.

[00:07:33] Because that that to me feels like a healthy cinema world, you know.

[00:07:38] Yeah.

[00:07:39] So it's no, you can't be anything but just so excited and proud.

[00:07:43] I don't want to reveal too much.

[00:07:46] Well, you know what this is for me.

[00:07:48] So I do want to get in the spoilers on this to all of our listeners of the next best picture podcast.

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[00:09:03] I have to ask you, the end of this movie, Tashi's reaction between what happens between the two boys.

[00:09:09] Can you tell me a little bit about what you think is going through Tashi's mind in that moment of embrace?

[00:09:14] You know, I'm so reluctant to put anything out there that takes away the experience of people getting to, like, you know,

[00:09:25] experience the movie the way it's constructed and the way it's supposed to be.

[00:09:28] I almost don't want to speak about it at all.

[00:09:32] I know it's just, I believe you it's just for you.

[00:09:35] But yeah, no, I want people to experience that moment and have their own feelings about it.

[00:09:41] Okay.

[00:09:42] I hope that's not too much of a bummer for you.

[00:09:45] It's all right. It's okay.

[00:09:47] It's all right. I'm going to watch it again anyway and I'm going to see if I have a similar reading on it or maybe I'll interpret it a different way.

[00:09:55] Yeah, if I run into you, I'm happy to talk to you about it then.

[00:09:59] Okay. All right. I'll hold you to that because especially I have a feeling I might be running into you later this year.

[00:10:06] I know you also are adapting another screenplay for Luca Guagnino with queer.

[00:10:11] Yes.

[00:10:12] How did that come about? Was it just your working collaboration on this and then this presented or was it just by coincidence?

[00:10:18] No, it definitely wasn't a coincidence. It was, you know, we had been working together on Challengers and we were in production for Challengers.

[00:10:27] And at that point, Luca and I already had such a great sort of working relationship where we spoke the same language and we were excited by the same things in film in general and in the film we were making in particular.

[00:10:41] And we had already developed a kind of easy friendship and he gave me this book by William S. Burroughs and I had, you know, read Naked Lunch years and years ago and knew new Burroughs and knew his work but I hadn't read queer.

[00:10:57] And Luca told me that this was a movie he had been wanting to make since he was a teenager since he first read the book and he wanted me to read the book that night and tell him if I wanted to write it for him.

[00:11:08] And that was kind of a no-brainer for me. I was, you know, incredibly touched and honored that he would trust me with that adaptation.

[00:11:19] And I really saw writing that movie as a sort of beautiful way to facilitate a conversation between these two great artists, you know, Burroughs on one hand and Luca on the other.

[00:11:32] So that was a totally different process than Challengers, which was really, you know, something that I wrote on spec not knowing what was going to happen to it, not knowing who I was going to make it with.

[00:11:43] This I was really writing it for Luca. That of course informs the way you construct a script.

[00:11:51] Totally. Can't wait for that. Can't wait to see what Daniel Craig brings to it. Very, very excited.

[00:11:57] Going back to Challengers really quick. I told you so. That shirt. Costume design choice or in the script?

[00:12:07] No, that's not in the script. That's the brilliance of Jonathan Anderson and Luca. And, you know, there's so many things like that that Jonathan brought to the storytelling that was happening in the clothes that they're wearing.

[00:12:22] It's really just such exceptional work that he did in this movie. And that's a that's one example of many.

[00:12:29] Sure. Hardest scene to write.

[00:12:32] Well, I had to the stuff that I had to do the most like research on was all the tennis, you know, it's hard to film too.

[00:12:42] It's hard to make exciting.

[00:12:44] Hard to make exciting. Yeah, exactly. And so I that that figuring out all of that was probably the most labor intensive. Definitely.

[00:12:54] Yeah, there's some stuff that Luca did in this stuff that I've never seen a never filmmaker do before.

[00:12:59] Oh yeah, tennis film. Yeah. No, he really he really took it as an invitation to use everything he knows about making movies to, you know, yeah, those those tennis sequences are incredible.

[00:13:10] And I'm sure if you're like the rest of us, you two have probably been bopping away to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's score for this since it released.

[00:13:18] Do you have a particular favorite standout track or use of music in the film that really stands out to you that helped to elevate what you did on the page?

[00:13:26] I mean, I'm like so in love with the score that it all is is exciting to me.

[00:13:34] I don't know what any of the title track titles are so I would have to come it for you which I'm too embarrassed to do but that's fine.

[00:13:43] I do have my favorites. I think the, I mean, I think like the in general their their use of the percussive stuff that the use of percussion in this score is pretty incredible and a lot of stuff I've heard in film scores.

[00:14:00] So yeah, absolutely.

[00:14:03] I know that we can look forward to queer from you next. Is there anything else though, whether it's on television, theater, film that we can look for other work from you in the future?

[00:14:13] There's a few things I'm working on a few things that are, you know, that are finished. But I sadly queer is the only thing I can really talk about right now.

[00:14:24] And I know you can barely talk about that. So I'll leave it with this then tease me with what Daniel Craig has done with this role.

[00:14:33] He's just so good in the movie. And he's like, it's completely different from anything I've seen him do. And he was he just threw himself so totally into it.

[00:14:44] I can't wait for people to see it. I can't wait to talk more about it. It's like, it's a really exciting, it's really exciting movie.

[00:14:51] Well, we'll do this for round two. I'm sure in a couple of months. So Justin, thank you so much for your time here once again.

[00:14:57] I really, really appreciate it man. Thank you very, very much. This was fun. Take care.

[00:15:01] Hey everyone, thank you so much for listening to my interview with the screenwriter for Challengers. Justin Koretsky is here on the Next Best Picture podcast.

[00:15:10] Challengers will be released in theaters on April 26 by Amazon MGM Studios.

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