Zendaya Says She’s Unsure If She ‘Could Ever Be a Pop Star’: ‘It’s All You All the Time’

Starr Bowenbank
·2 min read
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Zendaya has come into superstardom, largely due to her role as Rue Bennett on HBO Max’s drama Euphoria, on which she also works as an executive producer and an occasional contributor to the show’s score. But despite her experience with music, Zendaya thinks that the pop-star life is not for her.

Speaking to Andrew Garfield for Variety‘s Actors on Actors issue published on Tuesday (June 7), the pair discussed how the general public project their thoughts and expectations onto stars, which led Zendaya to recall a conversation she once had with Euphoria director Sam Levinson.

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“I was talking to Sam about this earlier. I was like I don’t know if I could ever be a pop star. It’s because as an actor, there’s a level of anonymity that I get to have, which I really like,” she told Garfield. “And I get to sort my stuff, whatever that is, through a character, and nobody needs to know about it. Whereas in other forms and other mediums, it’s all you all the time. I like the idea that somebody else, meaning Rue, gets to take on that stuff.”

Garfield then suggested whether Zendaya’s reservations on pop stardom are related to boundaries. Her response? “Yeah, boundaries. Learning what’s for me.”

Zendaya has put her music skills to use for both seasons of Euphoria, working with composer Labrinth on “Elliot’s Song” and “I’m Tired” from season two, and “All of Us” from season one for the soundtrack. In the past, the actress has hopped in the studio to lend songs for Smallfoot (“Wonderful Life”), The Greatest Showman (“Rewrite the Stars,” “This Is the Greatest Show”) and Finding Neverland (“Neverland”).

While the 25-year-old released solo single “Something New” alongside Chris Brown in 2016, the former Disney Channel star did not put out an album to follow her 2013 self-titled LP, which was led by the release of top 40 single “Replay.”

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