Beautiful, brilliant, feminist, anti-racist, Zendaya is undoubtedly the actress who best embodies Generation Z. If, like Ryan Gosling or Selena Gomez, her career began on Disney Channel with the series Shake It Up (2010) , all it took was one role on the small screen for the 27-year-old actress to explode. In the shoes of Rue Bennett, the young girl addict of Euphoria, the HBO series by Sam Levinson produced by rapper Drake, Zendaya has become the incarnation of teenagers suffering post-Covid, addicted to social networks and full of anxiety social.
Drugs, alcohol, sexual violence, the two seasons of Euphoria (2019 and 2021) revealed in the effort a whole generation of actors: Jacob Elordi (the Elvis Presley of Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla), the “it girls” Sydney Sweeney and Alexa Demie, trans actress and model Hunter Schafer and of course Zendaya. Without makeup, feline, broken, the actress in a state of withdrawal is a special effect in her own right, an appearance which propels her to the youngest winner of the Emmy Awards where she twice wins the prize for best actress in a drama series.
All icons
If Zendaya has worked in Hollywood since the age of thirteen, she grew up with her fans (184 million followers on Instagram) and emancipated herself from the Disney label through fashion. Born Zendaya Coleman in 1996 in Oakland, California, to an African-American father and a mother of Scottish origin who was a theater teacher, the young woman whose first name means “to give thanks” in the Bantu language distinguished herself in Louis Vuitton, Valentino, Tommy Hilfiger and Bulgari campaigns. Face of the new Lancôme perfume, she has just completed the transatlantic promotion of the second part of Dune by Denis Villeneuve, appearing in the spring on the cover of the two biggest fashion magazines in the world – Vogue USA, photographed in barely blooming pink by Annie Leibovitz , and British Vogue.
Mind-blowingly glamorous, Zendaya contains all the icons within her: Joséphine Baker and Greta Garbo, Naomi Campbell and Audrey Hepburn, Michelle Obama and Julia Roberts. All under the guidance of his appointed stylist, the impetuous Law Roach described as his “fashion pygmalion”, self-proclaimed “image architect” who has shaped – among others – Ariana Grande and Céline Dion. A few weeks earlier she appeared on the red carpet in the famous Thierry Mugler metal jumpsuit from the 1995-1996 fashion show. Robotic and vintage silhouette, seeing her break the canvas like a chrome Amazon or a futuristic Barbarella, we say to ourselves that the world is not ready for Zendaya. Yet it is she who shapes it.
Becoming Zendaya
A precocious and multi-talented performer, dancer and singer, Zendaya is capable of transcending all artistic universes. At seven or eight years old, she was already learning the Shakespearean tirades of the Californian theater where her parents taught, imagining herself as Richard III or Rosalind. When she arrived in Los Angeles at thirteen, she already knew exactly how to act and dress. Between three Spider-Man blockbusters with his boyfriend Tom Holland (including No Way Home in 2021, the biggest box office revenue of the Marvel franchise) and two seasons of Euphoria (the third would be in the starting blocks) , she is a heroic sand warrior alongside Timothée Chalamet in Dune.
Charismatic and lively on screen, she remains discreet and engaged in real life. On her Instagram account we find portraits of African-American writers and activists James Baldwin and Maya Angelou or Serena Williams, black icon and tennis star who inspired her for Luca Guadagnino’s film. Except for Malcolm & Marie (Sam Levinson’s love drama in black and white, released on Netflix between two confinements), this is the first time with Challengers that Zendaya has headlined an adult film. Also a producer – it was she who chose the Italian filmmaker (author of Call Me By Your Name with Timothée Chalamet) as well as the two male roles, Josh O’Connor aka Prince Charles from the series The Crown and the attractive Mike Faist from Spielberg’s West Side Story – Zendaya no longer plays a lost teenager but a leading lady who remembers her tumultuous love affair between two boys she knew as teenagers. And she sets the rules.
Match Point
Zendaya hypnotizes in Challengers, a sporty and sexy love triangle by Luca Guadagnino.
Sometimes the best balls don’t fly on clay but in real life. During a tennis match supposed to separate Art and Patrick, two champions and former childhood best friends, a face stands out in the crowd of spectators. That of Tashi (Zendaya, imperial class), ex-pro player who became a coach following an injury, and whose love life will unfold in flashbacks that sweep away fifteen years of footwork. What we love about the new Luca Guadagnino (his best film since Call Me By Your Name) is its assumed pop and fun dimension, filming romantic relationships like a Grand Slam, mixing advertising codes with the classicism of comedies romantics on an electric soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (the duo of The Social Network and Millenium), celebrating the homoerotic dimension of male friendships like the desire that tips over a match point. And the big winner is Zendaya.
