When Luca Guadagnino and Zendaya discussed the final frame of UnitedThey used one specific word: primitive. The film ends on a cliffhanger of sorts during the central tennis match tiebreaker set, with Zendaya’s Tashi delivering one line that has become one of the… United Most talked about moments (“Come on!”). “His direction was: Give me a primal scream,” Zendaya recently explained THR presents Live panel, powered by Vision Media. “I went to watch a lot of Pepperdine games while I was getting ready, and they were definitely screaming that way. It comes from such a deep place.”
Guadagnino, who saw United As an exploration of competitive eroticism, she saw the final scene as a way for Tashi to release — in a not-quite-asexual way — all the energy she’d possessed during her years of training her husband, Art (played by Mike Faist), for greatness. “Something has finally been unleashed,” he added. “I think it’s the most beautiful way to end the film, with this freedom of her desires.”
The director and star gathered at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles alongside co-composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and co-producers Rachel O’Connor and Amy Pascal, where they discussed behind-the-scenes stories from the making of the film. UnitedWhat was it like to witness the success of the film? Reznor and Ross were also fresh off winning the Golden Globes for Best Original Score. “Luca said you can do whatever we want, but may I suggest we make the music loud, propulsive, techno, almost in your face,” Reznor says of their first meeting. “It’s a character in the movie. It wasn’t where we would have started instinctively, but it was exciting.”
Ross added: “I think sometimes we can get too comfortable and complicate things, but I was just listening [to the movie] In the back, and I have to say it looked really good.
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