Are Patrick And Art Bisexual In Challengers? Josh O'Connor Explains Their Sexualities And Their Kiss

26 April 2024, 17:34

Josh O'Connor Reveals If Patrick And Art In Challengers Are Actually Queer. Picture: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images, LANDMARK MEDIA / Alamy Stock Photo

By Sam Prance

Here's what Josh O'Connor has said about whether or not the characters in Challengers are queer.

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Challengers revolves around a tense love triangle but there's a question on everyone's lips: Are the film's characters queer?

Ever since the trailer for Challengers dropped, people have been eager to know more about the central love triangle. The film tells the story of Art (Mike Faist) a former tennis champion who plots a comeback with the help of his wife Tashi (Zendaya). The catch is that Art has to play against his former best friend and Tashi's ex love interest Patrick (Josh O'Connor).

To make things even more dramatic, all the teasers for Challengers have leant heavily into the concept that there is sexual tension between Art, Tashi and Patrick but how do the characters actually identify? Are Patrick and Art bisexual? Here's what Josh O'Connor has said about the characters' sexualities in the movie.

Read more: Zendaya Reveals The Churros Scene In Challengers Was Unscripted

Are Patrick and Art bisexual in Challengers?

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Talking to Variety about Challengers and whether or not Tashi, Art and Patrick identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community in the film, Josh said: "Yeah, I think they’re all fluid. I think they all kind of love each other and they’re figuring that out. They’re trying to understand where that plays out and how it plays out."

Josh continued: "So I don’t know if there’s a clear-cut answer to that, but I think that they’re all tied in. They're all completely tied to each other."

As teased in the trailer, Challengers does include a three-way kiss between Tashi, Art and Patrick in which Patrick and Art passionately kissing each other. Speaking with Vanity Fair, Josh explained that director Luca Guadagnino was very intentional with how the kiss panned out.

He said: "Luca had a very clear idea of what happens on the bed. The idea of me and Mike, with Zendaya in the middle – this idea that it’s kissing, kissing and then it turns into this three-way kiss – and then suddenly Mike and I are kissing. That was very clear."

Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist in Challengers. Picture: BFA / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Josh said that they then improvised the kiss itself. He revealed: "We all kind of figured it, how are we going to do this? How does this work? It was fairly organic. We did little things, like, when they’re sitting on the floor and she goes onto the bed, I was up in a flash and not holding back."

He ended by saying: "That came from us knowing our characters well and knowing the dynamics between the three of us."