"Challengers": Zendaya reveals story behind famous kissing scene

Zendaya's latest romantic tennis drama, features a steamy kissing scene involving the film's lead trio.

After its Friday release, "Challengers" is already being dubbed as one of the sexiest movies of the year, thanks to a steamy kissing scene featuring Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O'Connor.

During an interview with Yahoo Entertainment, the actors explained that the scene's success was due to several factors: trust between them, the presence of an intimacy coordinator, and director Luca Guadagnino's vision.

"With those scenes in general, they are very technical," Zendaya said.

"The camera is involved. ... They are the fourth person. It's truly a lot more technical and put together more than people maybe understand ... Everything is choreographed, like a dance in many ways."

O'Connor added, "There are a number of aspects that make any scene work. I do think that trust in your other actors is vitally important, and that can be with things that are intimate like a three-way kiss or just generally doing any scene."

"When it comes to the intimate scenes, we had an intimacy coordinator," O'Connor revealed.

"Also, Luca had a very clear idea of how it was going to work, so you sort of design it like a dance. There's no question of, ‘What are we doing next?"

In the movie, Zendaya portrays Tashi Duncan, a tennis prodigy who attracts the attention of best friends and doubles partners Art Donaldson (played by Faist) and Patrick Zweig (played by O'Connor). Their complex love triangle unfolds throughout the film.