Zendaya Breaks Down Her Approach to Selecting New Roles

At 29, Zendaya has built an impressive filmography spanning multiple genres and character types. Her résumé includes everything from her undercover spy role in KC Undercover to her acrobat performance in The Greatest Showman, plus the darker emotional terrain of Rue in Euphoria and the competitive tennis world of Challengers as Tashi Duncan.

In a recent Vogue Brasil cover interview, the actress opened up about the decision-making process behind her career choices.

A strong script is paramount to capturing her interest. "I like complex and interesting characters that challenge me and unfold," she explained. "When I'm choosing roles, I get a lot of inspiration from the script. For me, it's not easy to maintain attention for very long; I get distracted very easily when I'm reading. When you read a script that really captures your imagination and attention, when you really enter the world that's being built and want to know what happens to these characters, that's when I know I'm kind of on the right track."

The actress also values a certain level of creative risk in her selections. "It's important that the work is exciting, but also a little scary—like, a little healthy fear about whether or not I'll be able to embody the character is always good. It's a challenge for me to complete," she said.

Beyond the material itself, the filmmaker behind the project plays a crucial role. "And, of course, filmmakers. Working with specific directors motivates me," Zendaya noted.

When it comes to the emotional work of inhabiting a character, she draws from her own experiences and vulnerabilities. "What's interesting about any character, actually, is that they teach you a lot about yourself. And even though the characters might seem very different, there's still a lot of personal emotion, my own, that I use in each of them," she shared. "And they all teach me something new about the world, and about myself, you know? They're all parts of me or facets of me. It's inevitable that they influence me in some way. Especially when I get attached to them, which happens to me quite a lot. It's kind of inevitable to take a little bit of them home with me."

However, she maintains professional boundaries once production wraps. "But I usually believe in separating that, ultimately, these are characters and I try to keep their emotional lives just on screen, on set. When the director says 'cut,' I usually try to detach myself from them somehow," she explained.

This year, Zendaya has already returned to Euphoria and appeared in The Drama. Her upcoming projects include The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and Dune: Part Three.