Zendaya Reflects on ‘Complicated Feelings’ About Being a ‘Child Actor’

Zendaya is looking back at her days as a child star and opening up about her life today in a new story for Vogue and British Vogue’s shared May cover.

While speaking with journalist Marley Marius and tennis star Serena Williams, Zendaya said she has “complicated feelings” about her past.

When asked what her goals were growing up, the “Challengers” actress said, “Hmm. It’s funny because it’s something that I’m figuring out now. I don’t know how much of a choice I had. 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, okay, wait a minute: I’ve only ever done what I’ve known, and this is all I’ve known.’”

She confessed she’s in her “angsty teenager phase now,” because she didn’t have the space to do that 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.”

The actress said always felt like she needed to be “perfect.”

“Now, when I have these moments in my career — like, my first time leading a film that’s actually going to be in a theater — I feel like I shrink, and I can’t enjoy all the things that are happening to me, because… I’m very tense, and I think that I carry that from being a kid and never really having an opportunity to just try sh*t. And I wish I went to school.”

Williams was a sympathetic ear, having gone through her own bout with child stardom as a tennis player and going on to attend design school and then launching her own business.

Zendaya also talked about how fame had impacted her boyfriend Tom Holland as he transitioned from a stage star in "Billy Elliot" to the MCU in "Spider-Man: Homecoming," which they starred in together.

“We were both very, very young, but my career was already kind of going, and his changed overnight," she said. "One day you’re a kid and you’re at the pub with your friends, and then the next day you’re Spider-Man. I definitely watched his life kind of change in front of him. But he handled it really beautifully.”

As he returns to the London stage in "Romeo & Juliet," she is so "proud" and vows to see "as many shows as I possibly can."

She went on to recall a date to the Louvre in 2022, where she felt like they were on display.

“You just kind of get used to the fact that, 'Oh, I’m also one of these art pieces you’re going to take a picture of,'" she said. "I just gotta be totally cool with it and just live my life.”

She called the visit "one of the coolest experiences ever,” comparing it to "Night at the Museum.”