An explosive love triangle in which “all corners touch”, Challengers is riding multiple highs as it approaches its April 26 release. From tennis lovers eager to be fed before the bouts at the 2024 Olympics, to Zendaya fans looking for her next award-winning role. This intense story of love, jealousy, sex and sport is directed by the filmmaker behind Call Me by Your Name and Bones and All, Luca Guadagnino. The line-up is full of stars with Zendaya herself also producing the film. Another excellent choice of casting is Josh O’Connor, known mainly for his stint as Prince Phillip in Netflix’s The Crown. The last piece of this spectacular puzzle is stage veteran Mike Faist of Dear Evan Hansen fame. Faist has also received a BAFTA nomination for his work on Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story.
In Challengers, Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) is a prodigy player whose life-altering injury sidelines her from the game of tennis. She becomes a coach for her husband, Art Donaldson (Faist). As they head into the challengers’ circuit, they clash head to head with her ex-boyfriend and Art’s former best friend, Patrick Zweig (O’Connor). Among the supporting roles include model, actor and sports psychologist Jake Jensen who plays challenger Finn Larsen. But today, the spotlight is on Naheem Garcia. Garcia plays the role of Tashi’s father, who supports Tashi in a managerial/promotional role. Present at the biggest turning point of Tashi’s career, this small but significant part is all Garcia.
Beyond Challengers, Garcia also plays Danny in The Holdovers, and is currently performing as Elmore in August Wilson’s King Hedley II at the Hibernian Hall, Roxbury. He’s also debuting his film Money Game at the Boston International Film Festival this April 13. Ahead of all that, we interviewed the actor and teacher to talk about his experience filming Challengers, working with Zendaya, and the importance of August Wilson’s work.
Please, tell us about your role in the upcoming Luca Guadagnino film Challengers and that whole experience.
In Challengers, I play Zendaya’s dad. It’s a significant part but it’s a short part. My relationship with her seems close but distant. There’s not a whole lot of stuff happening between us; you see more of her mother than you see me. Working on-set was fine. The director was very focused and a lot was going on. The actors were very wonderful! Zendaya is a wonderful young lady. I have a lot of respect for her and I think she’s very dynamic. A lot of my young students, when they found out I was doing the film, they were very excited. They said they wanted to be an entrepreneur like she is. She’s a very warm, very nice young lady, and very about her business. But Zendaya was very kind. All the actors were incredible, dedicated, and deep into it.
How did you first come across Challengers? What was the audition and filming process like and how did you become a part of it, ultimately?
The casting company here in Boston called me and told me to do a self-tape. I submitted it and then I got a call to say that they liked me. They made an offer and I went in. We filmed parts here in western Massachusetts and after that, we went to New York to film in Queens.
I was teaching when I did my self-tape so it was done between classes. I’m a Guest Teaching Artist so I physically go to several different schools. All this happened while I was visiting my alma mater and working there. I went to high school here in Boston, a place called Maddison Park High School. It’s funny because I’m back there doing the residency for the Huntington Theatre Company – a residency for the August Wilson New Voices Monologue Competition. We help and coach young people to memorize and learn about August Wilson’s work. There’s a break and I do the self-tape.
As soon as I got the part, I got booked, I got my date and I went in. Then they started processing the dates for New York City. Like I said, my part was short and quick, but it was a nice part. It was very important because it represents a turning point in her career as she was moving up.
You teach theatre and you talk about playing this small part in a massive film. How do you work with something small within the script but significant nonetheless? What would you teach your students to make the most of something like that?
The smaller the part is the more you’ve got to tear back the layers. Think of it as an onion; you’ve got to keep tearing layers back until you find connections. There’s a relationship with her father. It seems like he’s kind of involved in the management/promotional aspect of her life. You don’t see a lot of him but you know he’s there and you know he’s involved. I tell my students this:
I don’t care if you’ve got a one-liner. One-liners are probably more difficult than monologues for a couple of reasons. That one-liner can pack a punch. If you tear back the layers, you start to see all the different levels and degrees that character may have in that one line. It doesn’t mean you have to overact or make it any more than what it is. But it does mean there’s more to it than what you see. You have to make sure that whatever it is that you do, it’s noticed and it’s seen.
The only scene you see me outside of the tennis game is at the celebration. It’s when she made the deal with Adidas. Just like anything else I tell my students, “No matter how big or how small the part is, just be real, stay committed and stay involved”.
What was it like working with these top-tier actors? Not just Zendaya, but the likes of Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist as well?
They couldn’t have asked for better actors; all three of them were amazing. You’re talking about one of them who was in West Side Story and the other from The Crown. These are top actors and they’re young people. Young but they’re at the top of the game right now – and they have a nice chemistry. We talked, there were conversations and we spoke. But what I do most of the time is observe how they approach the work and what they take out of it and bring into it. They all have theatre backgrounds, including Zendaya. There’s always a learning process and you always learn lessons more when you do film compared to theatre. When you do film, the approach is not the same way. In film, everything’s a lot smaller and a lot more detailed. Film picks up everything!
Before being part of Challengers, were you a fan of tennis at all?
I like tennis and I attempted to play a few times. I definitely play ping pong which is about the closest thing I can get to it. Tennis is one of those games that I wouldn’t mind playing from time to time. Zendaya and all, they were all playing like they were pros. I don’t know if she played any of that before the film but she convinced me! I didn’t get to see the other two gentlemen play because it was focused on her. Of what she was doing at that particular time and where her career was going. She had just won the big game, she had just got the big deal with Adidas—all of that was happening.
You just recently opened August Wilson’s King Hedley II in the Hibernian Hall in Boston. What was that experience like?
August Wilson is a mountain; his work is a mountain. Here’s the interesting part. When I was working at the Huntington Theatre Company, August Wilson was alive back in the 1980s to 1990s when he was developing this play. They had pulled me in to be an understudy. At the time, I was doing a few things. I was a dean of discipline at a middle school, I was a Teaching Artist at the Huntington, and I was also working on a film called Lift with Kerry Washington. It was a lot to balance out.
Working with August Wilson’s work is very difficult because there are a lot of details to it. It’s very wordy; you’re looking at several pages of dialogue—each character has several pages of dialogue. You’re talking about six characters in a three-hour play. We’re talking about the urban Shakespeare! It’s a lot of work; it could be quite challenging and quite difficult. It forces me to have to focus only on that. August Wilson, I remember one day at a rehearsal when he told everybody to go home. He went back and he added several different pages to some of the characters and he did all this rearranging. Then he came back and folks had to memorize it.
I had to leave. I didn’t complete the understudy because I was doing this film with Kerry Washington and I was handling other responsibilities with my job. It was just a lot; too much dialogue to memorize along with everything else I was doing. These actors, they wake up and this is what they do all day. You’re spending three or four weeks working on this script and then you’re spending the rest to run it. But for that to work, you don’t do it part-time. You don’t do this and handle five other scripts. August Wilson’s work is like Shakespeare. There’s a rhythm, there’s detail, and there’s a lot going on. At any given time, one slip-up—one word—could throw everything off.
I haven’t done work this challenging in twenty-something years because even though I work on films and I teach, I haven’t performed on stage. Right before I did this play, I did A Raisin in the Sun. But I had a very small role; I played Bobbo. In other words, you wait two hours for six minutes and then it’s over. I go from that to running this marathon. There’s a lot to catch up! I’m working with actors that are on stage all the time. It feels brand new.
When I was younger and I was doing this work, I was lazy. I didn’t want to memorize all that dialogue and I had my head elsewhere. Now, I am embracing it, and it’s a beautiful experience. The work is a beautiful, ugly play – if I could put it that way. It’s probably his darkest and most challenging play. My message to anyone who gets an opportunity to do August Wilson’s work is be very clear, be very prepared, just do this project and not too much of other things. This is a mountain and you have to take one step at a time with it. You’ve got to pace yourself and take care of yourself.
So, you didn’t complete the understudy role way back then. Do you feel like it’s a full-circle moment or a redemption arc of being able to do it now?
Well, here’s what’s interesting. In June, I was in Pittsburgh for a workshop for teaching artists. I also have to be a coach for the August Wilson’s New Voices Monologue Competition. That’s a national high school competition. The theatre I work for, the Huntington Theatre Company – its education department under the direction of Michael Bryan – facilitate this competition. I am a coach and artist working with young people doing this. I’m in Pittsburgh, I’m sitting in the back of August Wilson’s house – which is now a beautiful museum and arts center – and I’m watching one of the plays, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. At home two days later, I get a phone call and an offer to play this role. Not an audition—an offer! I won’t lie to you—I was like, “Damn you, August Wilson. You are not going to let this go, huh?”
See, back when I was understudying and I came back the next day, everybody had all these new parts and all these new lines. I’m looking at pages and pages of this actor that I’ve got to understudy. As I’m going to the bathroom, August is coming out of the bathroom. I say to him, “August, you couldn’t find a way to shorten some of this stuff?” He looked at me crazy and walked away. But now that I’m chewing these words, I see that he had to. The characters have a lot to say because they have a lot to say, and the message is important. Even though the situations are ugly, the words are beautiful.
A line that’s very powerful is: “You done being God? Death is something he do. God decides when he wants someone to die. He decide when somebody ready, not you”. Two men who have committed a murder have a conversation. One is saying, “Hey, we committed a murder. When you do that, you’re playing the role of God. God decides when somebody goes, not you. That’s not your job; that’s not your place”. That’s a very powerful piece. It’s a real—as the term is used—“come to Jesus” moment. But even though this play is very dark, there are a lot of happy moments. People are finding themselves and they’re celebrating with each other. There are still moments of hope.
I hope that gave you a little insight into it. A big shoutout to Actors Shakespear Project and the director Summer Williams for really directing one hell of a piece. All the other actors are just amazing. It’s an honor to be in their presence and an honor to be able to work with them.
In April, your film Money Game is going to debut at the Boston Film Festival. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
When I was filming The Holdovers, I was offered this part. I play an Economics professor. A gentleman who used to be in Wall Street. He got disgusted with what they were doing, what they were asking people to do, and the level of money greed. It’s the fact that this information on creating financial success was not being given to the people who could really use it. He went back from Wall Street and now he’s a professor in a community college.
It’s ironic that I’m playing an Economic professor. Trust me, the last person to teach Economics would be me—but I did it! It was great and it was a lot of fun. The director and the producers had a lot of faith in me. They felt that I was the person who could deliver it. We’ll see what the outcome is but I think it’s a good piece. It’s about a young man, he’s a widower, working in the medical industry. He’s trying to figure out how to make more money and create generational wealth. He just wants to take care of his two pretty little daughters with the support of his sister. It’s finding new love in the process. He also developes a relationship with this professor who becomes a friend and mentor towards the end.
Money Game is one of those films that doesn’t end in a bad way. It doesn’t end with us running into the sunset, but it’s realistic. You put in some work, you prepare yourself, you take care of yourself, and things will work out. I loved it; I thought it was great. It was a very big part for me and I’m glad I did it. I felt confident that I did well, and I hope the rest of the world feels the same way.
This March you’re working on King Hedley II and in April both Money Game and Challengers are coming out to an audience. You’re quite a busy man! How do you feel about all these releases and projects coming out all at once?
I think the steps towards my career flourishing are happening. I’m very happy that after many, many years of working very hard in this industry, I’m also creating an infrastructure for the film industry to develop and flourish. The fact that Hollywood is coming here to do films—there was a time when they weren’t. I’m very big on being able to work at home. Particularly here in Boston, Massachusetts in New England. People are quick to say, “Go to New York, go to LA”. I’m like, “I can work here”, so—I’m living the dream. I get to see myself work in this industry and I’ve developed a career. The fact that I could do it in my own backyard is a real blessing. I would love to see in the years to come how big the industry grows here in Massachusetts.
That’s a wrap on this Naheem Garcia interview. Challengers is out worldwide this coming April 26 with a London red carpet premiere coming on April 10. Moreover, Money Game will debut at the Boston International Film Festival on April 13 while King Hadley II has been extended to run until April 7. Excited for Challengers? Be sure to let us know what you’re most looking forward to in regards to the film on our Instagram or Twitter! Learn more about Mike Faist in our previous article, Henry Butash On The Making Of The Atlantic City Story With Broadway Stars Mike Faist And Jessica Hecht.
