As she gears up for the release of her new film Challengers, Zendaya is opening up about an aspect of her career that she finds peculiar – the disproportionate interest in her onscreen kissing and intimate scenes.
In an interview on Jake’s Takes, the Emmy-winning actress was asked about the “abnormal amount of attention” her kissing scenes tend to receive from media and fans. Zendaya expressed her confusion over the phenomenon.
“I have no idea. I don’t know if it’s because they want it to be, like, a viral thing, but I have noticed that – with me specifically,” she said. “I feel like other actors don’t…if there was somebody else here, you probably wouldn’t ask that question.”
The 26-year-old star, who rose to fame as a child actress on Disney Channel, acknowledges that intimate scenes are simply “a part of my job” as an adult actor. However, she finds the heightened scrutiny surrounding her performances in this arena to be “very odd.”
“It is a completely normal part of the job, despite maybe other people’s perception of our job,” Zendaya noted. “But yeah, it is odd. Thank you for bringing that up, because I was thinking the same thing. This is weird.”
Her comments highlight a double standard she has seemingly faced, where her onscreen kisses and love scenes draw outsized attention compared to her peers. As a prominent young actress transitioning into more mature roles, this fixation underscores society’s complicated relationships with female sexuality and intimacy.
In Challengers, Zendaya plays a former tennis prodigy-turned-coach embroiled in a complicated love triangle with her husband and his former best friend, both professional tennis players themselves. While the film portrays this dynamic in a “sexy” manner according to the star, she has clarified it does not actually contain any explicit sex scenes.
As she continues pushing creative boundaries with complex adult roles, Zendaya’s candid perspective raises thought-provoking questions about society’s expectations and assumptions surrounding talented actresses depicting intimate storylines as part of their craft.
“From a character perspective, I want to find things that will push me,” she stated last year. “As I get older, you know, I can’t play a teenager for the rest of my life.”
