Zendaya goes through an emotional roller coaster, psychological games, twists and turns in her movie Malcolm & Marie. The situation is triggered when her boyfriend, a film director (John David Washington) forgets to thank her during his speech at a premiere. The story is partly based on filmmaker Sam Levinson’s life. He wrote the role specifically for Zendaya after they filmed the TV series Euphoria. Zendaya tells HFPA journalist Aniko Navai that she enjoyed the freedom of collaboration.

“There was no such thing as a bad idea. I’ve known Sam now for the past couple years and we’ve done an entire show together so we’re very close and we’ve had a lot of conversations and I think some of that dialogue, some of those conversations have kind of bled into the writing of Malcolm & Marie. He wrote Marie obviously for me but I think he also wrote it to me and to the woman that he sees growing and becoming and I think there’s a little bit of both of us in both of the characters. I think there’s a little bit of all of us in all of the characters, John David included, because he came in and he brought his own experiences and his own kind of thing to Malcolm as well. That’s the beauty of it, all of our lives have imprinted in these characters in some way.”

The late night starts with a talk, continues with arguments and shouts and escalates to insults, attacks, counter-attacks, kisses, make-up, and then they argue again. 

“Marie is a little bit different than me and that’s the kind of thing when you’re building a character is kind of walking a line of it, having things that are similar to you and then have qualities that are extremely dissimilar to you because it’s important that you find a character, you find someone that is different and find someone that challenges your own thoughts and maybe even your own instincts.”

What she would do differently than Marie? “A lot of times when Marie says something I feel like, “oh, I would never say that to somebody, I would never go there, I would never cut that deep”. I’ve learned definitely how I don’t want a relationship to go, if anything I know how not to argue with somebody, I know how I don’t want to interact with someone that I love. So that was interesting, finding the balance between what felt like me and then what felt like Marie.”

Listen to the podcast and hear what hope means to her; how the pandemic affected the filming of Malcolm & MarieBetween U and Me, that she wrote when she was 15; how she found her style; how she describes her mother’s jewelry line; why she didn’t continue her own fashion line; when her dad stopped being her manager; when did she buy her first house and how she decoratet it; why the piano has become an important element of her house; is she a good cook?; what is her favorite outfit at the moment; how has her view changed on social media and being on the phone all the time; why cinematography and directing interest her; what she does in her free time; and how she learned to appreciate her life more.