In a new interview with Vogue Magazine, Zendaya opened up about how she’s always casted for playing “high school” role when she never went to high school.
The “Euphoria” star has a new film coming out where she will be leaving the classroom and play a tennis phenom in the upcoming movie “Challengers.” In the movie, Zendaya will also play the role of a mother in her early 30’s. “I’m always in a high school somewhere,” Zendaya told Vogue. “And, mind you, I never went to high school.”
The actress did admit that it feels “refreshing” to step away from the high school roles but she also explained why the new challenge is kind of scary. ‘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.’” Zendaya never got the chance to fully know what it’s like to be a high school student because her career took off when she was 14-years-old and she starred in Disney Channel’s “Shake It Up,” which led to other roles on network. “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,” Zendaya told Vogue.
“And I think only now, as an adult, am I starting to go, ‘Oh, okay, wait a minute: I’ve only ever done what I’ve known, and this is all I’ve known.’ I’m almost going through my angsty teenager phase now, because I didn’t really have the time to do it before. 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,” she added.
Acting overshadowed Zendaya life where it made her feel like this need to be “this perfect being, and be everything that everyone needs me to be, and live up to all these expectations.”
“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 [with ‘Challengers’]—I feel like I shrink, and I can’t enjoy all the things that are happening to me, because I’m like this,” Zendaya said while balling up her first. “I’m very tense, and I think that I carry that from being a kid and never really having an opportunity to just try sh*t. And I wish I went to school.”