Zendaya Opens up About Being a Teen Star
Zendaya recently spoke about the struggles of being a teenage star and her choice to transition to adult roles in an interview with British Vogue.
The star has made many career milestones since she started working in Hollywood at 13. Since then, Zendaya has been an ambassador for Louis Vuitton, Valentino, Tommy Hilfiger, Bulgari, and Lancôme. At 27 this month, she will become one of the few stars to grace the cover of British Vogue and Vogue US simultaneously.
zendaya wearing a schiaparelli by daniel roseberry number that is yet to hit the runway for vogue us april 2024 pic.twitter.com/pEAMt8omcM
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Apart from her role in 2021’s Malcolm & Marie, Zendaya’s role as Tashi Duncan in Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers marks her first leading lady role in a movie. Duncan is a character who knows who she is, a teen tennis star who eventually suffers a career-ending injury. From there, she becomes a coach for her husband Art (Mike Faist), aiming to win him the US Open.
“There was something about her that felt very, Oh, d*mn,” Zendaya told Vogue. “Even I was kind of scared of her,” she added. Despite the star being in the acting game for a while, she noted how much of a transition portraying Duncan was for her.
“I’m always in a high school somewhere,” she explains in her Vogue interview. “And, mind you, I never went to high school.” For her, the price of stardom was no longer attending school. She discloses that breaking away from those roles “was refreshing. And it was also kind of scary because I was like, I hope people buy me as my own age, or maybe a little bit older, because I have friends that have kids or are having kids.”
she is a master when it comes to posing. behind the scenes of zendaya’s latest vogue shoot pic.twitter.com/dTm37w5gAt
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Zendaya expressed that she wished she had the opportunity to attend school. “I’m almost going through my angsty teenager phase now, because I didn’t really have the time to do it before,” the star explained. We, as audiences, have seen the supposed end of child stardom, some being detrimental.
her evolution is crazy. we love you zendaya
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She reveals to Vogue that she felt as though she was “thrust into a very adult position.” “I was becoming the breadwinner of my family very early, and there was a lot of rolereversal happening, and just kind of becoming grown, really.”
She’d also felt that she needed to be “this perfect being, and be everything that everyone needs me to be, and live up to all these expectations.” Challengers will hit theaters April 26.
