Zendaya Reveals Why “It Was Scary” To Stop Playing Teens

In most of Zendaya’s best-known performances, she’s played a teenager. (See: Euphoria and Marvel’s Spider-Man saga.) But in her latest film Challengers, Zendaya grew up fast, which she says was a new experience for her.

“For so long I was playing a teenager, way past when I was one,” Zendaya said in The Hollywood Reporter’s Jan. 3 roundtable. “There comes a time where you’ve got to start playing your own age and beyond. And it was a scary thing. Challengers was my first time in a leading lady role and being a part of the producing aspect. It was all very exciting and also daunting. But when you read certain characters, you’re like, ‘I just can’t pass up the opportunity to play this woman.’”

Zendaya said she was drawn to the character’s intense passion for tennis, relating it to her own acting career. “It spoke to me because I love my job so much … And I think, ‘What if it was all taken away?,’” the actor said. “Her true love was tennis. And it gets snatched from her so quickly. She doesn’t know who she is anymore without this thing. And that’s something in my own life — I’ve been working since I was a kid, and I was like, ‘Wait, who am I when I’m not working? Do I have a life? What do I even like to do? What are my hobbies? Like, who is Zendaya outside of this?’”

She revealed she’s taken up pottery and has been baking scones as some hobbies that are separate from the entertainment industry, but she still struggles with how immersed she’s been in her work since a young age.

“I have a complicated relationship with the idea of child acting because I’ve seen it be detrimental to people,” Zendaya said. “I’m so grateful that this is how it turned out. I wouldn’t change it, but there are things that I wish I lived out privately, you know? Because you’re figuring out who you are in front of the world. And you’re like, ‘I’m trying to do this right. I want to make everyone happy, but I don’t really know who I am yet. I have no idea what I’m doing.’”