The 'Challengers' actress addresses her complicated feelings about children in the public eye.
Zendaya is offering high praise for boyfriend Tom Holland. The Challengers actress is opening up about the sudden rise to fame Holland experienced after the pair co-starred in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming.
"We were both very, very young, but my career was already kind of going, and his changed overnight," Zendaya tells Vogue in a cover story for the May 2024 British and American issues, on newsstands April 23.
"One day you’re a kid and you’re at the pub with your friends, and then the next day you're Spider-Man," she continues. "I definitely watched his life kind of change in front of him. But he handled it really beautifully."
Holland and Zendaya, both 27, starred as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Michelle "MJ" Jones, respectively, in 2017's Homecoming, 2019's Spider-Man: Far from Home and 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home. Prior to that, Holland had donned the Spidey suit just once for an appearance in 2016's Captain America: Civil War.
For her part, Zendaya's career began years earlier as a Disney darling. She starred opposite Bella Thorne in the series Shake It Up from 2010 to 2013.
Now, the Euphoria star admits to having complex feelings about children in the limelight.
"I don’t know how much of a choice I had," she said of her early roles. "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,'" she says. "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 also grapples with the idea of how her own future kids may be impacted by her fame.
"I don’t necessarily want my kids to have to deal with this," she shares. "And what does my future look like? Am I going to be a public-facing person forever?"
The actress notes that her ideal scenario would be to "make things and pop out when I need to pop out, and then have a safe and protected life with my family." She admits to struggling with the "massive anxiety" of her fans losing interest in her.
"This idea that people will just be like, 'Actually, I know I've been with you since you were 14, but I'm over you now because you're boring."
Zendaya looks anything but boring in her latest photo spread, stunning in a white bridal-coded look for one of the shots by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz.
The actress wears all-white in a custom Schiaparelli Haute Couture dress and veil, with an intricately detailed necklace and bouquet designed by Daniel Roseberry in one image. For the American cover, she goes floral chic in a rose-inspired Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda dress with a Bulgari High Jewelry ring. The star was styled by her longtime collaborator, Law Roach, for the shoot.
Challengers is set to hit theaters on April 26. In the drama from Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino, the Dune star plays Tashi Duncan, a rising tennis prodigy who finds herself torn between two other stars of the sport: Patrick, played by The Crown star Josh O'Connor, and Art, played by West Side Story's Mike Faist.
As for Holland, ET spoke with the Avengers star at the 2024 Critics Choice Awards in January where he talked about his next moves in Hollywood.
"It's definitely the next chapter, [and] I think the beginning of my career is sort of coming to a close with sort of getting to that next step," Holland shared. "I'm very excited."
He also said that he feels "very creatively driven to sort of do some new things and push myself in ways I didn't think I could."
As for whether that might entail another Spider-Man film, Holland reportedly left the door open during a press conference last fall.
"We have been actively engaging in conversations about what it could potentially look like for a fourth rendition of my character. Whether or not we can find a way to do justice to the character is another thing," he said, according to Collider. "I feel very protective over Spider-Man. I feel very, very lucky that we were able to work on a franchise that got better with each movie, that got more successful with each movie, which I think is really rare, and I want to protect his legacy. So I won't make another one for the sake of making another one. It will have to be worth the while of the character."
In his most recent interview with ET, Holland said there are "a few things under the radar" that he's got lined up, but he isn't quite ready to share details about those projects.
However, the actor stressed that as he enters this next stage, "I feel very secure and happy and I'm enjoying life."
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