January 06, 2025
It appears Zendaya judges her work so critically as she calls herself a big "self-critical."
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter's Leading Ladies issue, she said, "I’m a very self-conscious person. Everything I do is very self-critical. And I find that being on a set is one of the few places that I don’t judge myself."
"I can just be super free. Because I’m like, 'Wait, it’s not me.' So I don’t mind watching myself. I don’t actually ever get weird about it until I go, 'Oh, people are going to see this,'" she continued.
"Once it’s time to promote something, I’m like, 'Oh, now I’m self-conscious about the work that I just made.' But up until this point, I was just in my little bubble of creative freedom. It’s not until you realise, 'This won’t belong to just me forever,' that my head starts going," the Dune actress added.
Elsewhere in the interview, the Challengers also shared that she had an interest in directing but had concerns; however, after watching Angelina Jolie, her fears seemingly vanished.
“You truly are an amalgamation of all these genius people’s ideas,” the Emmy winner shared.
“That’s what we were just talking about (gestures at Jolie) with directing because I would love to direct one day, and you’ve been able to do it — and in a beautiful way."
"Something that makes me so nervous is [directing], and [Jolie, before] was like, ‘But there are people to help you.’ There are these gorgeous teams of people that we get to work with that create just as much as we do, the characters that we play," Zendaya concluded.