Zendaya became famous as a teenager, but she now has mixed feelings about working as a child actor.
“I don’t know how much of a choice I had,” the actress, 27, told Serena Williams during a conversation for Vogue’s May cover story, published on Tuesday, April 9. “I have complicated feelings about kids and fame and being in the public eye, or being a child actor. We’ve seen a lot of cases of it being detrimental. … And I think only now, as an adult, am I starting to go, ‘Oh, OK, wait a minute: I’ve only ever done what I’ve known, and this is all I’ve known.’”
Zendaya went on to say that she feels like she’s going through her “angsty teenager phase” now even though she’s in her late 20s.
“I didn’t really have the time to do it before,” she explained. “I felt like I was thrust into a very adult position: I was becoming the breadwinner of my family very early, and there was a lot of role-reversal happening, and just kind of becoming grown, really.”
Zendaya got her start in the entertainment industry as a model before landing the role of Rocky Blue on the Disney Channel series Shake It Up, which aired from 2010 to 2013. She went on to star in K.C. Undercover from 2015 to 2018 before transitioning to more mature roles. In 2019, she began playing Rue Bennett on HBO’s controversial teen drama Euphoria, which earned her an Emmy in 2020 (making her the youngest recipient of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series).
While Zendaya is still figuring out how she feels about her child stardom, she noted that she’s since figured out how to make more space for herself without compromising her fans’ expectations.
“I think growing up, I always felt like when someone asks for a picture, I have to do it, all the time,” she explained. “You have to say yes, because you need to be grateful that you’re here. And while I still feel that way, I also have learned that I can say no, and I can say kindly that I’m having a day off, or I’m just trying to be to myself today, and I don’t actually have to perform all the time.”
Still, her years of working as a teen have made it harder to enjoy her adult success, most recently as Chani in the blockbuster Dune: Part Two.
“Now, when I have these moments in my career — like, my first time leading a film that’s actually going to be in a theater — I feel like I shrink, and I can’t enjoy all the things that are happening to me,” Zendaya said. “I’m very tense, and I think that I carry that from being a kid and never really having an opportunity to just try s–t. And I wish I went to school.”
