Zendaya covers the latest issue of GQ, and it’s kind of strange that the men’s magazine didn’t try to glam her up or style her in a negligee, right? I kind of wonder if Zendaya was like “no, I’m not going for sexy bombshell style” and GQ was like “okay how about ‘90s hipster?” And this is what they came up with. Zendaya, of course, has a million things happening – she’s promoting Euphoria, Dune, Malcolm & Marie and the next Spider-Man movie, plus all of her side-projects too, I’m sure. She’s only 24 years old and she’s busy, but the pandemic year has thrown her for a loop and she’s still trying to find her footing in the new normal. You can read the full profile here. Some highlights:
Going without a job for months on end: “It was the first time since I was 13 that I didn’t go back to something. There was no structure. [COVID lockdown] was my first time just being like, ‘Okay, who am I without this?’ Which is a very scary thing to confront and work through, because I don’t really know Zendaya outside of the Zendaya who works. I didn’t realize how much my job and my art were a part of my identity as a human. I feel most like myself when I’m working. I felt like, when I wasn’t working, my powers had gone away, and I was like, ‘Who the f–k—’ I didn’t really know who I was and what makes me happy. What do I like to do? What else do I do? What is my value? What is my purpose now?”
Malcolm & Marie: Sam Levinson’s pitch: “‘What if I just stripped everything away? There’s no gimmick, no anything. What does that look like? What if it’s just a relationship piece? What if it’s just two people, one’s upset because the other one didn’t thank them for something, and they’re in one place? And that’s all it is.’”
When she won an Emmy, she kept her award beside her bed: “Not even gonna lie! It was just nice to roll over and see her. She was pretty. Just beautiful. Glowing!”
Accepting praise: “In a lot of ways it feels like proving something to myself personally, yeah, but I feel like, I feel good about it for all of us. It feels like recognition that maybe we aren’t just like that little crazy show with the crazy kids, you know what I mean? To me, it’s like Mean Girls, when [Lindsay Lohan] breaks the crown. She’s like, ‘This is for you.’”
She talks about a lot more in the profile, like her childhood shyness, how profoundly out of sorts she was in lockdown, and how she loves it when people come up to her and say that their kids watched her show. She’s very much a young woman in transition, and I’m not saying that in a patronizing way. She’s grown out of that hyper-self-consciousness which plagues so many young people and she’s growing comfortable in her own skin but there’s still a lot of “kid stuff” in there. The profile also includes a lot more about Malcolm & Marie which, now I’ve read more about it, I really want to see it.
Photos by Tyrell Hampton for GQ, courtesy of promotional GQ email.
The first step is to drop the third person.
Agreed. A bit cringy.
+3
🤢🤢🤢🤢
You know what, I don’t think that’s fair. We’re not performers so we don’t really know what it’s like to constantly be exposed. Or to have to constantly orient your life for external approval because if you don’t, you might not get work. Plus, she’s been at this since she was literally a kid. She probably literally doesn’t know anything else except work.
Maybe she never stopped long enough to explore the person behind her public Zendaya persona. She’s clearly a workaholic.
If I’ve learned one thing about this pandemic, is that there are a LOT of people who will crumble to pieces if they don’t get that external stimuli or validation. The idea of being still and quiet and listening to their own thoughts literally makes their skin crawl. That people used the excuse of being too busy in order to avoid dealing with their issues. This pandemic took all of their emotional crutches away.
Maybe I’m biased, but I feel like “who am I without this…” gets exponentially scarier with each passing decade that you ask it.
I guess I know now who runs hollywood! lol…but in all seriousness…does this mean she can’t just be alone, by herself and chill? I love ME time. As an only child I had to rely on playing by myself and keeping myself occupied when I couldn’t hang with my friends. I love my husband dearly but there are some days where I’m like, I’m going to go in the bedroom and watch tv by myself and let him do his own thing.
This is me, exactly. I’m an independent, introverted only child. I NEED “me time.” I can’t relate at all to people who are married to their work or want to be around others all the time. I have a very rich inner life and prioritize time for myself. I think it’s sad when people work obsessively and don’t know how to just…be.