Zendaya talks about taking on more mature roles, wanting to go to high school and “get through my angsty teenage phase now”

In an interview accompanying this month's Vogue cover, Zendaya opens up about her ambitions, growing up in the spotlight and playing the role of every girl, even though she never went to high school.

The contrasts between her initial Disney TV on-screen persona, her reality growing up, and the more adult roles she now takes on are not lost on the actress.

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“I'm still in a high school somewhere,” the 27-year-old actress told Vogue of her past roles. “And, mind you, I never went to high school.”

She called for a move to more mature parts – like her upcoming film about the professional tennis love triangle Challengers, which has a steamy second trailer – refreshingly so. She added that making the jump to this sort of thing was “a little scary, because I was like, 'I hope people buy me at my age, or maybe a little older,' because I I have friends who have children, or who are having children.

The transition is important for her and stressful.

“Now when I have these moments in my career, like my first time directing a movie that's going to be in theaters, I feel like I'm shrinking,” Zendaya observed, “and I can't appreciate all the things that it happens to me, because I'm like This» she said, clenching her fists. “I am very tense, and I think I've been carrying this since I was a kid and never really had the chance to just to try shit. And I would have liked to go to school.

Zendaya did, however, graduate from high school, and a public one at that. After moving from Oakland, where she grew up, to Los Angeles, the actress attended Oak Park High School in Ventura County, which regularly ranks high on national “best schools” lists. She studied independently there and still seems to struggle with being part of the business at such a young age.

When asked about her goals growing up, the actress got thoughtful and told Vogue that she wasn't sure if she felt like she really had a choice.

“It’s funny, because it’s something I’m figuring out now. I don't know how much choice I had. I have complicated feelings about children, fame, being in the public eye, or being a child actor. We've seen a lot of cases where that has been detrimental… And I think now, as an adult, I'm starting to say, “Oh, okay, wait a minute: I only did what I knew, and it is all I knew.' I'm almost going through my teenage angst phase now, because I didn't really have time to do it before. I felt like I was put in a very adult position: I was becoming the breadwinner of my family very early on, and there was a lot of role reversal, and I was sort of becoming the breadwinner. grown up, Really.”

She added that she felt the pressure to be “this perfect being, to be everything that everyone needs me to be and to live up to all these expectations.”

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