Zendaya Wants to Make a Romance Film That Depicts a 'Simple Love Story About Two Black Girls'

Zendaya said she wants the project to be "something simple and beautiful that leaves you happy and wanting to fall in love yourself"

2021 CFDA Fashion Awards
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Zendaya wants to make a new kind of big-screen love story.

Speaking with her Euphoria costar Colman Domingo for Interview magazine, the 25-year-old Spider-Man: No Way Home actress explained the types of projects she wants to make in the future.

"You've been working since you were a kid, but you're still a young woman. What are you looking forward to in your career? Is it expanding as a director? I know you're producing now. Are you interested in that even more as well? What's on the horizon?" asked Domingo, 52.

"All of that. I don't necessarily have a plan. I've never really thought, 'I have to do this by this time and I want to do this by that time.' I just want to do the things that make me happy and bring me joy and fulfill me as an artist, as a person," said the Emmy winner.

"So, I keep that loose, because if one day it turns into a completely different career path, then I would allow myself to do that," continued Zendaya. "The idea of trying to direct in the future excites me. That's why I'm on set so much. When I'm not in it, I'm right there trying to learn. I go around and I ask our crew members, 'What are you doing today? Can you explain it to me?' Because we've got some real vets in the game. So the hope is that I'll be able to, one day, make the things that I want to see."

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One example that came to mind for Zendaya is "a simple love story about two Black girls" that isn't about trauma or hardship.

"I don't want it to be rooted in anything other than just a story about two people falling in love and that's it. Something simple and beautiful that leaves you happy and wanting to fall in love yourself," the Dune star explained. ... [I] feel I just haven't seen that without it dealing more with the traumatic side of things — which is really important to talk about, but I would love a coming-of-age story where awkward and funny things happen, just like when any other young person is trying to figure out who they are."

"Right. We can't just be. We can't just exist," said Domingo.

Added Zendaya, "Our existence is broad and expansive and beautiful, and to see all the different emotional colors of what it means to be a young Black girl — I would like to see that because I don't think I've seen many depictions of it."

Previously, Zendaya told British Vogue earlier this year, "If I ever do become a filmmaker, I know that the leads of my films will always be Black women."

Spider-Man: No Way Home is in theaters Dec. 17.

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