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Before the red carpets, before the Emmys,

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.BZ

before her name became shorthand for a certain kind

of fearlessness, she was just a kid from Oakland who liked to move.

She didn't know it yet, but she would

spend the next two decades making moves over

and over in front of larger and larger audiences.

This is the story of how a kid from the Bay Area became one of the

defining performers of her generation.

Not by accident and not all at once,

but through a series of deliberate choices,

most of them made before she was old enough to vote.

Zendaya Marie Stormer Coleman was born on September 1st,

1996 in Oakland, the youngest of six children in a close blended family.

Her father Kazembe is African American and her

mother Claire grew up in the Midwest.

Zendaya has set her name, which means to

give thanks in Shona, a language of Zimbabwe

and was chosen deliberately, a small act of

honoring heritage before she'd done anything to be thankful for.

Both of her parents were teachers.

Money was tight in the early years, and

when Claire took a job managing the house

at the California Shakespeare Theater in nearby Orenda,

it wasn't a glamorous career move.

It was a way to help support six kids, but it changed the trajectory of the

youngest one's life.

Zendaya grew up backstage.

While her mother sold raffle tickets and seated

patrons, her daughter watched Shakespeare from the wings

night after night, absorbing the rhythm of a

live audience before she understood a word of the language.

She trained at the theater's own conservatory program,

then later at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater.

At the Oakland School for the Arts, a

competitive audition only public school, she majored in theater,

taking stage roles that ranged from a

young girl in a Caribbean folktale to, notably,

a male lead in the musical Caroline or Change.

Outside the theater world, she found two more

disciplines, three years dancing hip hop with the

Bay Area Troupe Future Shock Oakland and hula

training at the Academy of Hawaiian Arts.

None of it was casual.

Between theater, hip hop, hula, and a run

of modeling and commercial work, the young Zendaya was,

in effect, already a working performer years

before Hollywood found her, showing up, rehearsing, hitting

marks, absorbing notes.

Her parents didn't push her into show business

so much as they built a structure around

a kid who wanted to be there anyway.

Discipline first, ambition second.

It's a childhood that, on paper, looks unremarkable,

a working-class family, a public art school,

community theater, but it produced something specific, a

performer who understood, long before fame arrived, that

talent without discipline goes nowhere.

That lesson would carry her through every version

of the career still to come.

My mom, she used to work at the California Shakespeare Theater.

So I always grew up around the theater,

and that's kind of where I really started

to really fall in love with the arts and things like that.

But I knew I really wanted to be

on Disney Channel when Hannah Martinez first came out.

I was in my room, I was in like fourth grade or something like that, and

I was in my room and I was just watching on my television,

and then all of a sudden I started crying.

And I was crying because I wasn't up there, and I felt like it wasn't fair

that she was doing what I really wanted to do, but I wasn't up there.

So that's when I kind of knew I wanted to be on Disney Channel.

In 2010, at 13 years old, Zendaya won the role of Rocky Blue in a new

Disney Channel series called Shake It Up,

about two friends in Chicago who become dancers on a local TV show.

I think we're just, we're just like our

character except for the fact that my mom is not a cop.

I do not have a younger brother, I have an older one.

Yeah, I think I'm basically just like my character.

I act a lot like her, and the only thing different is I don't dress like

her a lot, but that's it.

Basically, we're like kind of the same person.

We're technically the same person.

It was, in a sense, a role built for exactly the skill set she'd spent years

accumulating.

A dancer's body, a trained performer's ease on

camera, and none of the visible nerves of a first-timer.

Me, I was extremely shy.

If anyone can tell you when she first met me, I was really shy.

We were in the audition, there was a whole bunch of girls, and I just kind

of was in the corner listening to Michael Jackson just by myself.

I was always really shy until I actually

moved out of Los Angeles and started doing Shake It Up.

That's when I kind of broke out of my shell actually.

Now I'm not shy at all.

I don't get nervous anymore.

I don't get those butterflies as much, but I like it.

Shake It Up ran for three seasons and

turned Zendaya, alongside co-star Bella Thorne, into a bona fide tween idol.

She released her first single in 2011 and

her debut solo single, Replay, charted on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2013,

a rare crossover for a Disney Channel star of that moment.

♪ Yeah, wanna put this song on replay ♪

♪ I can listen to you all day ♪

♪ Hear you all day ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

Fan conventions, mall tours, magazine spreads,

the machinery of a Disney franchise moved into full gear,

and she moved with it.

If one day we did a pop-up, what would you do?

I would probably be...

Let's see...

That's tough.

I couldn't really see myself doing anything else.

What's been the funniest thing that's ever happened on set?

I think one funny thing, I walked into a wall.

You walked into a wall?

I walked into a wall.

I was talking to Adam and Zendaya, and Adam plays Deuce,

and I don't know how it happened, but I was looking at them,

and I just straight face into a wall.

And then Zendaya was sitting on my couch with me on set.

Oh, this is a good one.

- And she had... - Technically, this is my

embarrassing moment.

Yes, I'm sharing hers because it was really ridiculous.

She had a vitamin water on the couch, and I was like, she had that there.

We're just sitting and relaxing on the computer,

but all of a sudden, I feel like something really cold on my butt.

And I'm like, what is that?

Like, Spilsberg, what is going on?

Look, my entire bottom is covered in vitamin water.

And I was in an outfit that was Ibrahim's clothes, it wasn't mine.

So I had to go on camera, and I had to be in front of an

audience with that wet bottom.

And I was like, oh no, oh no, what am I going to do?

So she had to blow dry her butt.

Bring out her blow dryer.

We blow dyed off so that nobody would

freak out, but wardrobe didn't freak out because they still noticed it.

And I had to go on with...

They rewashed our clothes because it also got

on mine, and it was really cold outside, we were shooting outside.

And I had to go on with wet pants.

Yep, the whole time with wet pants.

I was very, very upset.

Reporters at the time regularly remarked on how

composed she seemed on camera, how unrattled by

repetitive questions, how ready with an answer that

was thoughtful rather than rehearsed.

Some of that was simply a trained performer's

instinct, but it also reflected something her parents

had insisted on from the start, that education

and self-possession mattered as much as the

work itself, and that a camera pointed at her was not a reason to stop being

careful, deliberate, or herself.

What do I have coming up next?

Definitely season two of Shake It Up just

premiered, so we're super excited for that.

Super excited for the fans to see what we've been working so hard on.

Lots of music.

I just came out with my first single,

Swag It Out, so that's doing really well.

Also, I did a single with Bella called Watch Me, and so I'm just working on

my music, trying to make that happen, and

balancing school and life and everything else with it.

Behind the scenes, colleagues from this era have

described a young performer who treated the set

less like a playground and more like a

workplace, arriving prepared, aware of the camera, aware

of the brand she was building in real time.

It was a foundation of professionalism that a

great many child stars never get the chance or the guidance to build.

For Zendaya, it would prove essential to what

came next, not just staying famous, but staying whole.

Thank you so much.

By her late teens, Zendaya was navigating one

of the most well-documented traps in entertainment,

the transition out of being a Disney kid.

Countless young stars before her had struggled publicly

with that shift, and she seemed acutely, almost

strategically, aware of the pattern, determined not to repeat it.

In 2015, she returned to Disney Channel, this

time on her own terms, starring in and

producing K.C. Undercover, a spy family sitcom

she helped shape from the inside.

K.C., are you okay?

Yeah, I don't know.

Suddenly, I feel a little sick to my stomach.

It sounds like you have food poisoning.

- What'd you eat? - I don't know, just that pasta that...

You made me.

What are you saying?

I'm saying you did this to me.

You poisoned your own daughter.

K.C., do you honestly believe that I would ever poison anyone?

Well, you did it to the enemy agent in Luxembourg.

It's how you got the nomination in the first place.

You make me sick to my stomach.

She has spoken publicly about pushing for the

show to center a Black family and for

her character to break from the network's usual

Disney girl mold, an early example of an

instinct that would define her career, not just

accepting roles but negotiating for what those roles represented.

That same instinct for choosing her moments carefully is part of why, in 2016,

a 20-year-old Zendaya found herself in the cast

of Beyoncé's Lemonade, the surprise visual album that

became one of the defining cultural statements of the decade.

Zendaya appeared in the all-night segment alongside

a group of young Black actresses and artists

in a project explicitly built around Black womanhood,

resilience, and reclamation.

For a performer who'd spent her whole life

idolizing Beyoncé from a distance, it wasn't just a credit on a resume.

She'd later call it a genuine honor to have been part of the project, a rare

instance of the fan and the professional lining up in the same frame.

Pull the sorrow from between my legs like silk,

knot after knot after knot.

It's a small credit in the larger arc

of her career, easy to overlook next to

the Emmys and the movie premieres still to come.

Around the same time she was reshaping her

career on screen, Zendaya was building an entirely

different kind of platform, the red carpet itself.

I like the fact that it was kind of like

a simple dress and you can do anything with it.

So it's like, it's more about your, like how you style it.

And so I liked that it was very chic and easy.

It's like a blank canvas and I could just have fun and like, so we decided

to pack on, you know, bracelets and big hoop earrings and crazy hair.

That kind of gives it a look of your own that, you know, anyone can wear

it and do their own thing with it.

She met stylist Law Roach when she was just 13 years old.

On the strength of a mutual introduction rather

than any formal industry connection,

Roach, a self-taught former vintage shop owner from Chicago,

would later call her his first major client.

What began as an unlikely pairing between a

teenager and a stylist with no established fashion

pedigree grew over more than a decade into

one of the most influential creative partnerships in modern celebrity fashion.

I have a stylist, he's right over there and we work together.

We're like the dream team.

And basically, you know, he knows my style.

He knows what I'm comfortable with, what I feel.

And we always try to push it a little bit.

So, you know, there's times where I'm like, come on, let's try this.

And he's like, no, I'm not a fan.

And then he ends up loving it.

And there's times when he's like, just try this.

I'm like, I don't really like it.

And then I'm a fan.

It's just that, you know, push and pull, give and take kind of thing.

Roach began styling Zendaya in vintage couture and

bold archival pieces most stylists wouldn't have risked

on a young star still associated with a kid's network.

Of course, I think it's so important as

somebody who, you know, loves fashion or is

interested in fashion to be around it, you know, and actually see it happen.

So it's exciting for me.

Together, they treated red carpets less like photo

opportunities and more like storytelling.

Each look built around a theme, a film's

world, or a cultural reference, turning press tours

into something closer to performance art.

It is by multiple accounts the reasons Zendaya

became one of the only performers of her

generation as closely associated with fashion as with acting.

I think fashion is kind of a way for us to express ourselves anyway.

So just that coming hand in hand, I think is really, really special.

So I'm excited to be here tonight.

I think it definitely, as like I said,

a young woman in the entertainment industry.

And, you know, it's just, I think fashion

and everything is definitely my world.

So I love being here.

What I love most about the Grammys, um, the red carpets.

I love to see what people are wearing.

You know what I'm saying?

It's that's always a fun thing because the Grammys,

like people either go really classic and elegant or they just go wild.

So we'll see.

Roach has described their relationship less as stylists

and client and more as siblings who made

a pact early on to support each other's rise.

And the results bear that out.

I mean, we've been doing it for so long.

Like we've been together for 15 years, you know,

and I've been very lucky to do, to be the

only stylist she's ever had and to do everything.

So it's just a, you know, it's just a maturation of, you know, where she was

when she first started her career, where I was and to where we are now.

So, you know, it's all so special, I guess.

His work with her helped launch his own

career into the top tier of the fashion

industry, eventually earning him the industry's first ever stylist award.

For Zendaya, fashion became something more than promotion.

It became another stage on which to say

who she was and who she was becoming.

I've grown and I've experimented and I've, you know,

met Law when I was like 14 years old.

So we've grown together in such a way

and, um, developed our tastes and things that we enjoy.

And, um, and then you just become more

and more like fearless, you know, you get, well, let's try it, let's do it.

Like who cares?

You know, and, and that's always a really good feeling.

And it's a, and it's a power, empowering feeling too.

In 2017, two films arrived within months of

each other that would permanently change the scale of Zendaya's career.

The first was The Greatest Showman.

The circus musical in which she played trapeze artist Anne Wheeler.

Of course, in the beginning, you're like, Of course.

Well, you know, you've got to understand that

like, you know, this, this woman is, is

experiencing this, you know, this is something that

she deals with every day that she's confronted

with and she faces with and she walks

around with, but not for his character, you know?

So this is an entirely new world for him.

And she, she's explaining this is no, this does not happen.

You don't understand.

This is dangerous.

This is not going to happen.

And so it's that idea of, of knowing in your mind what you think is right,

but then also having to, at some point,

let your heart speak louder than your mind

and just follow what your heart is saying.

And that's very difficult, especially at the time,

especially with the dangers, especially given the circumstances.

But I think, again, I think it's, it's so,

it's so relevant to now, you know,

people still try to tell people who they're allowed to love.

And that's just not how it should be.

It was a commercial afterthought on release, opening

modestly, and then became a sleeper phenomenon driven

by streaming and its soundtrack, turning into one

of the most enduring movie musicals of its decade.

Hit it!

I'm very excited.

You know, it's definitely that time of year.

And I feel like because I work so much, I never get to enjoy the holidays

and like, you know, fully soak up all

the fun stuff that happens during the holidays, which is things like this.

So it's kind of lucky that my job

has allowed me to do something that's actually really fun and really cool.

And I wish my whole family was here to see it.

I'm so excited.

I did this collaboration with Booming Girls and Aqua.

And basically, you know, we wanted to do

pieces and, and things that were inspired by

the movie, but also were wearable for a

girl going to a cocktail party or going to,

you know, a holiday event, you know,

so obviously there's no trapeze artist wear, but there's some inspiration.

There's a little glitter, there's a little shine,

you know, without being too literal, you know.

The second was Spider-Man: Homecoming, her entry

into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Michelle Jones, otherwise known as MJ.

It was her feature film debut inside one

of the largest franchises on the planet.

And it placed her, almost overnight, inside a

level of fame most performers never reach.

She's very enthusiastic, she's always observing, and she

says her little one-liner.

And I think it's cool to embrace the weird, you know what I mean?

Like have somebody that doesn't make the situation

awkward, but doesn't care, you know?

Out of that comes a lot of comedy.

She's mysterious, but she likes it that way.

Very intelligent, smart, always reading a book or

thinking about something, can't really tell what she's thinking.

But when she does interact with people, because

she's so smart, she comes off a little weird, right?

And people don't quite understand her and what's going on in her head.

And I think that it's, I think it's cool, you know?

I feel like she's relatable in that sense

to every kid that's just so smart, they just don't really have friends.

But she secretly does want to have friends, you know?

She secretly does want to be friends with Peter and Ned.

She just would never want them to know that.

It also put her alongside co-star Tom Holland,

playing Peter Parker to her MJ, a

professional pairing that would, over the following years,

become something more.

Though neither of them said much about it publicly for a long time.

My favorite thing about MJ in this film

that is something we haven't seen massively in

the previous two films is how nurturing she is.

You know, she really does become a shoulder

for Peter to cry on, and I really like that we've been able to build our

relationship like that throughout the films.

It's so funny, he can say why, but can't ask her out on a date.

Right?

You think that one would be easier than the other.

- That's the thing there. - Oh, so great.

I feel like that's what this movie does so well,

is it illustrates how difficult that is when you're that age.

Like, that's scarier than jumping off a building

and saving people's lives, is like, talking to your crush.

That is so crazy.

The stakes are much higher.

The stakes are much higher.

The Spider-Man films that followed only accelerated that shift.

Premiere footage from the era tells its own story.

Each red carpet larger and louder than the last,

fan crowds stretching further down the block,

press events multiplying across continents.

What had been a career built carefully, city

by city and role by role, was now operating on a global scale.

Box office receipts translated into a kind of

fame that doesn't fit neatly into any one country's media cycle.

Spider-Man's been in everyone's life.

Yeah, I feel like how can you ever not be Spider-Man?

Yeah, what's so funny is that like, I

didn't realize before how much people actually reference Spider-Man.

- In everything, yeah! - Yeah, but it’s everywhere.

Literally everywhere.

It's so cool.

Somewhere inside that scale was a relationship the

tabloids had been speculating about for years before

either of them confirmed anything.

Zendaya and Holland kept their personal life almost

entirely off the record through multiple Spider-Man press tours.

A level of discipline that, watching it now,

looks like an extension of the same

boundary-setting instinct from earlier in her career.

They didn't publicly acknowledge the relationship until late

2021 on their own terms and timeline, not the industry's.

So, I was wondering what British stuff Tom has taught you about?

Any slang you've picked up, or anything you've

learned up about British culture?

Other than the C word!

Yeah.

Uh...

Let's see, yeah, no, I've...

You've learned a bit of copywriting lately.

Yeah, yeah, and I, you know, I find that like, I do this thing when I'm

around him for a while where I speak

with British inflections but not the British accent.

- Yeah. - Which is really strange.

You have like an English cadence while saying it as an American.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because you guys like ask questions, like we

go down, so we're like, like, where are you going?

And he goes, where are you going?

Yeah.

And then I just kind of, I, oh, yeah, so.

Your favorite one is, I say, yeah, he was funny, weren't he?

Yeah, funny, weren't he?

And she says that all the time.

Because you just said funny, weren't he?

Yeah.

Yeah, he's funny, weren't he?

Yeah, he was funny, weren't he?

Funny, weren't he?

Or something that is that, you always say that at the end.

Yeah, that was funny, that.

That was funny, that.

That was proper funny, that was.

That.

Yeah, you're right, we do do that.

Something you already said, that.

It was funny, wasn't it?

Wasn't it, that.

That.

Your relationship with Tom, though, working on this,

I love even on social media, seeing it,

you guys are just constantly, like, having digs at each other.

Has it just been like that the entire time?

Yes, yes, it has.

No, honestly, from the first day, when the

cast kind of first met each other, we all bonded, like, immediately.

We had a day where we hung out with each other,

went to a picnic and did, like, this whole thing.

And then the next day, we were supposed to have work and our

work was supposed to go do an activity and bond with each other.

And we were like, we just did that yesterday.

Like, so all of us became friends so quickly.

And then, you know, with Tom, I think,

doing lip sync battle and stuff like that,

you know, we're always paired together.

So we have just become really, really close.

And he's just, he's so great.

He's a great person.

And it's nice to know that, like, the superhero is also a good person.

You know what I mean?

And I'm, again, I can't complain about having

any type of pressure on my character because,

I mean, he's Spider-Man and he's handling it so well, so.

It would have been easy at this point

for the story to become simply about box office

and franchise math or just as easily about tabloid speculation.

Zendaya has generally declined to let it become either.

But even as the scale of her fame

kept expanding, the more interesting turn in Zendaya's

career was about to happen somewhere much smaller

and much darker than a blockbuster premiere.

I promise you, if I could be a different person, I would.

Not because I want it, but because they do.

But here's the thing.

One day I just showed up without a map or a compass and at some point,

you have to make a choice.

In 2019, Zendaya took on the role of

Rue Bennett in HBO's Euphoria, a drug-addicted

teenager narrating her own unraveling.

It was as far from a Disney Channel dance number as a role could get.

And it announced, unmistakably, that the actress behind

it intended to be taken seriously as an artist, not just as a star.

The recognition came fast.

At the pandemic-altered 2020 Emmys, delivered largely

over video call, Zendaya won Outstanding Lead Actress

in a Drama Series for the role, becoming,

at 24, the youngest person ever to win

in that category and only the second Black

woman in the award's history to do so.

Two years later, for the show's second season,

she won it again, becoming the youngest

two-time winner in Emmy history in any category.

Accepting the award, she spoke not about the

achievement itself but about the audience, who had

seen themselves in Rue's struggle, telling the room

she carried their stories with her along with the characters.

You know, my greatest wish for Euphoria was that it could help heal people.

And I just want to say

thank you to everyone who has shared their story with me.

I want you to know that anyone who has loved a Rue or feels like they

are a Rue, I want you to know that I'm so grateful for your stories and

I carry them with me and I carry them with her.

So thank you so much.

By this point, she wasn't only Euphoria's star.

She was also a credited executive producer on the series,

recognized that same award season as

the youngest producing nominee in Emmy history,

a distinction that quietly foreshadowed the next phase of her career.

The dramatic weight of Euphoria didn't slow her film career down.

If anything, it ran alongside an unprecedented run

of blockbuster roles, including the culmination of her

Spider-Man trilogy in No Way Home and

playing Shani in Denis Villeneuve's Doom and its sequels.

What do I like most about playing Shani?

I think what I really appreciate that Denis

brought forward with Shani in this iteration, I

think is really giving her strong conviction and

a real strong sense of self.

And I think for me, that was enjoyable

as an actress because it made the whole

love story much harder and more difficult, which means we had to earn it.

And their love isn't given.

It's something that they have to work for.

It's breathtaking.

When you see sand here, imagine water.

If you dive in, you can't reach the bottom.

You dive in?

Yes, it's called swimming.

I don't believe you.

What would you give to be back filming those incredible desert scenes now?

It was absolutely beautiful.

I mean, I got to see views that I think very few people get to see.

And I was able to really be submerged in the world of Doom.

I felt like I was literally in Arrakis.

So I was incredibly grateful for the whole

journey and very excited for more people to see it.

And I hope everyone enjoys it because I

would love to revisit these characters and experience it all again.

The opportunity to work with Denny, I think

he's an extraordinary filmmaker and has always been

someone that I also admired.

So stepping into that, I was like, I

don't have much time and there's so many

people that I have to hopefully stand next to and do somewhat of a good job, you know?

And it was intimidating and scary.

But as soon as I got there, there was such a warmth and an embrace that

I felt immediately comfortable and taken care of.

And all I had to do was be guided and Denny opened up and explained the

world to me and was able to do that in a short amount of time.

And everybody was so welcoming and it was a beautiful experience.

I was only there for a few days, but I felt like I had been very

quickly a part of a family.

So yeah, I appreciate all of you guys for making it such a wonderful time.

And I feel extremely grateful to just be

a piece of this really gorgeous puzzle that is Dune, you know?

So I, yeah, very, very humbled and it was a special, special time.

Watching the footage from these years side by side is almost disorienting.

The same actress within the same 12 months

delivering an Emmy winning performance as a teenager

in crisis and headlining some of the biggest

science fiction and superhero productions in the world.

She comes into it extremely guarded with a

lot of pain surrounding what Paul really represents in her life.

And so I think for me, it was exciting because I was like, oh, there's this

internal constant dialogue I think she's having with

herself over whether or not she should allow

this person in and whether or not it is safe to love.

And I don't know.

So the love story was interesting to find

with someone who is so intensely fierce and

strong and guarded for good reason.

It was the moment Critical Respect finally caught

up with the ambition that had been visible

to anyone paying close attention since that first

Disney Channel audition tape.

In the summer of 2020, with film and

television production shut down worldwide, Zendaya called Sam Levinson,

the creator of Euphoria, whose second season

had just been halted by the pandemic and

asked if he could write and direct a

movie during quarantine, something small enough to shoot

safely that could put the show's idol crew back to work.

Six days later, he had a script.

Malcolm and Marie, a black and white

two-hander about a filmmaker and his girlfriend unraveling

over one long night after his film's premiere.

You are by far the most excruciating, difficult,

stubbornly obnoxious woman I've ever met in my entire life.

I fucking love you.

Oh, he's so sensitive.

He's romantic.

I bet he's sweet, right?

Well, I mean, yeah.

When he's not being an emotional fucking terrorist.

Oh.

I love the way you see the world, Marie.

Mystery.

The unknown.

It's what supports the tension of a relationship.

You're angry.

No.

It's a what-if factor.

Marie.

Marie.

Marie.

What if there's someone who loved them better?

Zendaya starred opposite John David Washington, but she

didn't stop at acting.

She helped finance the production alongside Washington, Levinson,

and his producing partner, taking on real financial

risks for a project built from nothing but

urgency and an empty house outside Carmel.

The gamble paid off commercially before the film had even been finished.

Netflix won a bidding war against half a

dozen major studios and streamers, acquiring the film

for $30 million, a striking sum for a movie made on a budget of roughly $2

...5 million.

Critically, the reception was more divided.

Reviewers were split on the script itself, some

calling it self-indulgent, but there was little

disagreement about the two performances at its center.

Even critics who disliked the film tended to

single out Zendaya's work opposite Washington as some

of the most mature, unguarded acting of her career to that point.

Commercial success, mixed reviews, a performance that expanded

what people thought she could do.

It was a strange, telling combination, and it

wouldn't be the last time in her career that all three arrived together.

If Euphoria marked her arrival as a serious actress,

the years that followed marked a quieter,

less publicized shift from performer to producer, shaping

projects from the inside rather than simply appearing in them.

Challengers, the 2024 tennis drama directed by Guadagnino,

is the clearest example.

Zendaya was accredited producer on the film by

her own account, drawn to producing not as a vanity title, but as a way to

be present in the filmmaking process itself, sitting

in on cinematography discussions, learning from directors, having

what she has described as a genuinely valid

seat at the table rather than a ceremonial one.

The first thing that I produced was my Disney show.

Yeah, so way back when.

And then, yeah, Malcolm & Marie, Euphoria.

A little couple things.

But this is the second film, yes.

Welcome to London.

How does it feel to be in the home of tennis?

You're in here, the UK.

I know, I feel very lucky to be here.

I'm so grateful to everyone who has showed up.

Every time I do these things, I'm like, nobody's going to actually be there.

But then they are, and you're like, oh my gosh, this is so cool and so special.

So I feel very lucky.

And why should audiences see this?

What's the message?

Man, it's just, it's a ride.

It's a rollercoaster, like an emotional rollercoaster.

But ultimately I think a lot of fun

and leaves you questioning everything and wanting to

talk to, you know, and argue probably about

what character you like best and what character you hate most.

- And want to play tennis as well. - Yeah.

It wasn't the first time she'd done this kind of work,

her producing credit on K.C. Undercover years earlier

was an early, less noticed version of the same instinct.

But by the time of Challengers, the ambition was unmistakable and public.

An actress who had spent her whole career

being directed was now actively choosing which stories got told and how.

You were incredible today.

To have a fashion line, a foundation.

Just gonna turn a whole family into millionaires.

What are you gonna do now?

Unfortunately, my only skill in life is hitting a ball with a racket.

I want you to be my coach.

I want you to be my coach.

How often does this happen?

Going after the same girl?

Come here.

Which one of us?

♪ She’s a maneater ♪

This is a game about winning the points that matter.

I don't need to play my games with you.

Can I have a cigarette with me?

I have to talk to you.

I don't smoke and I'm not talking to you.

The film unfolds around a single lower tier

match between Art and Patrick years later, cutting

back and forth across more than a decade

to reveal the tangled history between all three.

It's a role built on control rather than sympathy.

Tashi is exacting, strategic, often unreadable, and it

gave Zendaya a very different kind of showcase than Euphoria.

Not a character unraveling, but one who never stops calculating,

even when everything around her is falling apart.

In which ways do you, kind of, connect to Tashi?

Erm, in many ways I think erm...

You know, while we go about things very differently,

I think ultimately she has a real love and

passion for what she does and it's taken

away from her so soon, so I definitely empathize with that.

Industry coverage increasingly described her less as a

star for hire and more as an architect

of her own slate, building relationships with directors,

developing projects, and positioning herself for a career

that extends well past any single role.

It is in many ways the natural continuation

of the instinct first visible in that Oakland

theater lobby, not just performing in someone else's

story, but helping decide what story gets told at all.

- Zendaya, right here, right here. - Right here, right here, right here.

Zendaya, yeah!

Zendaya grew in her world of fame by

also letting the public know that she cares

about them and about people with illnesses.

She has grown to be a huge support system to her many fans and of the wider public.

In 2012, she became an ambassador for Convoy

of Hope and encouraged fans to support Hurricane Sandy response efforts.

It's awesome.

You know, I really, really appreciate it because

I love what they do and I'm very inspired by what they do.

You know, both my parents are educators, so

young people and kind of, I don't know,

just kind of giving them something to kind

of release their energy into and be a part of and feel like they're part of

something bigger, I think is really, really important,

especially like from a teacher's perspective.

Our next honoree's name means to give thanks

in Shona, which couldn't be more fitting.

She's an exceptional role model for young people

everywhere, standing up for the joys of giving

back and the importance of empathy and kindness.

It means a lot to me.

I definitely think why it's so important is

because, you know, sometimes you have to realize

that you have a lot of things in your life and sometimes people don't.

So seeing things like this, you don't have

any clue how important it is and how much it really does affect their lives.

I think that, you know, idle time is the devil's workshop, right?

So being able to have something that they can hold on to and they can be

a part of and just kind of seeing

that and being actually there on the ground

and understanding that is so beautiful.

So I appreciate everything that you do and thank you.

In 2014, she recorded John Legend's All of Me

with a portion of the proceeds going to the organization.

The same year, she celebrated her 18th birthday

with a campaign to help feed at least

150 hungry children in Haiti, Tanzania and the Philippines.

Today, I'm here to surprise some of our trick-or-treaters.

We have this amazing school here and I

cannot wait to meet them and just talk to them and make sure they know that

I am watching them and I'm very, very

thankful for all the work that they've done

and hopefully inspire them to just go out

there and continue to support the cause.

I am the spokesperson for Trick-or-Treat

for UNICEF, which is very exciting for me

given that I was a UNICEF trick-or-treater for elementary school,

my entire elementary school.

So I already knew about it.

I was already aware with the work that UNICEF had done and continued to do.

So when they kind of came to me about the whole project, the interest, and I

was just like totally on board and totally ready to go.

What does it mean to Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF?

It means that, you know, I think it says it on the box, really kids helping kids.

I think not only are we helping people

and we're making a difference and providing things for

children that they actually need and like

just basic things that you would just assume

that people would have the luxury of having that don't.

But we're also in the process, I think, teaching humanity.

We're teaching love.

We're teaching sharing, giving, kindness.

There's so many things that we're learning as well in this process.

And I think it's really important to start

kids off young kind of thinking that way because at least for me, when I did

it now, look at me now kind of still being a part of UNICEF and still,

I guess you say, trick-or-treating.

This year, what's really cool is if you

don't have the orange box, if it's not

in your school or you haven't ordered yours,

you can actually go online and basically, I

would say, virtually have a little orange box

and kind of set up a donation page

that you can notify your friends, family about

and still be a part of the cause, still donate more, if not as much as

anybody else would and still make a difference,

but just in a much easier, new age kind of way.

Hi!

We have matching shirts.

Okay, I'm going to let the shock set in.

Zendaya has supported campaigns to raise awareness about

underserved communities and underprivileged schools.

Well, I think it's important that young people

feel accepted and feel loved and feel that

they have a support system and people behind them.

And so I think that young people, like

I've said a million times, we're the future

and it's important that we cultivate the young

people's minds and allow them to be exactly who they are.

In September 2017, she partnered with Verizon Foundation

as a spokesperson for their national We Need

More initiative to bring technology, access and learning

opportunities to children.

Don't care about other people's opinions.

That's what I think is the number one thing.

And when you step outside and you do

what you do, dress and live for yourself

and for the satisfaction of yourself.

A lot of people do that just so someone can tell them that they're pretty.

But the person that you should be waiting

to hear I'm pretty from is yourself.

Two decades on from that first leap across

an Oakland stage, it is difficult to find

a corner of popular culture Zendaya hasn't touched.

Television, film, fashion, music, producing, magazine covers across

continents and languages.

Museum-adjacent fashion moments discussed as seriously as any runway show.

Awards season campaigns built around performances that, a

decade earlier, a former Disney Channel star wasn't

supposed to be trusted with.

What makes the arc unusual isn't simply the scale of the fame.

Plenty of performers reach a version of that.

It's the visible thread of intention running through nearly every turn.

A childhood built on discipline rather than accident.

A teenage star who protected her own boundaries

when the industry offered none.

A red carpet partnership built on genuine creative

trust rather than transaction.

And a dramatic pivot into difficult material taken

on for its own sake, years before the awards arrived to validate it.

They need to love themselves and that it takes time.

It's not something that happens overnight.

No one is born with perfect confidence.

No one just comes out the room like, oh, I feel fabulous, you know what I mean?

It takes time and you need to know that there are tons and tons of other

women and you can go through that change at any point in your life.

You know, my mom recently just kind of,

I think, became more confident and came into

her own and she's a grown woman, you

know, so it's something that can happen at

any point in your life and know that you are on your own clock, you are

on your own time and not to rest yourself.

By 2026, the story had entered a new phase entirely.

Zendaya took a small but pointed role, the

goddess Athena, in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, a

film that would go on to become the

highest grossing movie of Nolan's career, crossing a

billion dollars worldwide within weeks.

That same year, she returned to the role

that first made her a global star, headlining

Spider-Man: Brand New Day, alongside Tom Holland,

a film that delivered the second biggest opening

weekend in box office history.

For one extraordinary stretch, Zendaya and Holland had

two films simultaneously breaking records at the same

box office, on the same weekends, press labeling

them, only half-jokingly, the reigning king and queen of Hollywood.

It was a strange symmetry.

A partnership that had spent years staying almost

entirely out of public view was now, by

simple commercial force, impossible to ignore.

I also feel like you need to talk about your ins and outs when you wish

Zendaya a happy birthday.

You said, my M.J., happy birthday, give me a call when you're up.

It was iconic.

Thank you.

- It's had like 19 million likes. - Wow.

How does it feel to be in the public eye and have people be so invested

in like a social media post, say, in the two of you in this franchise?

- I mean... - I took the picture.

- No, I'm kidding. - Yeah, you did take the picture.

I mean, it's crazy.

It's crazy, but something we try and not

think about all that much, you know.

We're here to do a job.

We're here to promote a movie that we love and we're proud of.

And, you know, we're very lucky that we

have fans that are so supportive and so invested in our lives.

You know, we're very careful with how much of our personal lives we share.

So everything, you know, is something that goes

through, not planning, but like, you're like, hey, can I post this?

And you're like, let me just have a look.

And then we're zooming in in the background,

making sure there's nothing in there.

So, you know, everything, you know, there's a process to it.

But, you know, it's sometimes nice to share some of your life with the fans.

And it's nice to see that they, you know, reciprocated that love.

And, you know, I didn't know it had 19 million likes, though.

That is fucking crazy.

Yeah.

Speaking of secrets, you told the secret that broke the Internet.

Did I?

Yes, you did.

- Oh. - Was that planned?

I don't know what you're talking about.

You think I'm married.

We missed a wedding.

We could roll back that tape.

I have no idea what you mean.

Who got married?

I mean, people get married every day.

It's about a wedding.

I know, but dark, but dark, but dark.

It's about a wedding.

And she's signing her name Holland.

In Vegas, she was signing her name Holland.

Do you call her Mrs. Holland?

I call her Zendaya.

Zendaya's story, notably, has no tidy ending.

New films, new collaborations, and new producing credits continue to arrive.

What began as a little girl in the

wings of a community theater has become, by

any reasonable measure, one of the defining entertainment

figures of her generation.

And, on the evidence of the last two

decades, someone who is only just beginning to decide what comes next.

I'd much rather be known for the kind of human being that I am than the

last project that I did.

And I would much rather people respect me for that part of who I am.

So I think it's just kind of demanding

that respect and also continuing to project that upon others as well.

It's really important.