DOMINGO: Once I came of an age where I recognized my mother as a woman and not just my mother, I was able to have different conversations with her. Do you have conversations like that with your grandmother?
ZENDAYA: Yeah, absolutely. I asked her about my dad. I asked her about her siblings and what it was like growing up with them. Sheâs from Little Rock, Arkansas, and she met my grandfather when she was very young. They got married when she was 14 or 15 years old. It was a very different time. Eventually they were no longer together. They were separated. But sheâs a little shady about it.
DOMINGO: Sheâll throw some shade? Is your grandfather still living?
ZENDAYA: No, my grandfatherâs no longer around. He passed when I was quite young as well. But sheâs funny. Sheâs quick, sharp as a tack. And sheâll talk to anybody, if she likes you. And she really likes me.
DOMINGO: Is she still very active?
ZENDAYA: Unfortunately her body, thatâs another thing. Her body has given out a bit over the past few years, so she canât do what she used to. She says, âYour girlâs still kicking, just not too high.â
DOMINGO: I love that you are so connected to your grandmother, because Iâll tell you, I just came back from D.C. this past week, and I made a point to go to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Have you ever been there?
ZENDAYA: I went as soon as it opened.
DOMINGO: Itâs still resonating with me, in particular this quote from Maya Angelou, which is, âBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.â To see the experience of our people and how weâve traversed and made culture, created, and survivedâI think youâre a very deep person, and Iâm sure you have thought about this, but do you recognize that you are the dream and the hope of the slave?
ZENDAYA: I have so much to be grateful for. Even talking to my grandmother, her world and her existence was so different from mine. I can be the manifestation of all of her prayers for me, and thatâs really cool. I hope to continue to make our ancestors proud. Our existence, you being who you are, you doing what you do, is continuing to open doors and to be their wildest dream. We just have to exist in our most beautiful form to continue to do that.
- Top and Briefs by Loewe, Necklace by Magnifica High Jewelry by Bvlgari.
DOMINGO: Absolutely. That goes back to what you were saying you hope to create, because thatâs also my hope: to create those moments where we just exist, where we just are.
ZENDAYA: I always think, in what ways is my voice most potent or palpable? Iâm not really active on social media like I used to be, but thatâs for a reason. I love saying how I feel and speaking out about things, but I also donât want to say that I just tweeted my life away. That I just tweeted about something, but what did I actually do about it? Hopefully my ability to be a storyteller, to make those stories that I havenât seen, to showcase different forms of Black love and the different colors of our emotional experienceâthat will be my speaking out. Thatâs my action. Because we learn how to be a person not just through interactions, but by watching movies and TV. You want to be like your favorite character. So many people have built the personas that they take out into the world based on what theyâve seen in the media.
DOMINGO: Right. What do you say about the many young people who you can tell from a mile away, like, âOh, they watched Euphoria.â Their makeup, their hoodies, things like that. My hope is always that theyâre also interrogating a little further and not emulating.
ZENDAYA: Of course. Itâs not a show to emulate. The showâs intention, for all of us who make it, is to open up the door to empathy for another personâs experience. Rue has helped me do that, tremendously. Before meeting Sam [Levinson, Euphoria creator], before playing Rue, I didnât understand in grave detail the experience of what it means to be an addict. Nor did I feel I had enoughâmaybe some, but not enoughâempathy for that experience and how it is, like your character Ali says, a degenerative disease. My hope is that the show makes somebody who has either gone through addiction, or knows somebody who has, feel they are less alone in their experiences, and that maybe it gives somebody the lexicon to communicate with their loved one who needs help, or it gives the ability for that loved one to say, âListen, this is how I feel. I couldnât explain it to you, but just watch this and youâll understand where Iâm coming from.â Because the cool thing about Rue is, she makes bad decisions and she hurts a lot of people, but we still love her and we still root for her, and thatâs a feeling that I hope people will take on with their own loved ones or other people suffering from addiction.
DOMINGO: Right.
ZENDAYA: When we did the diner episode, a lot of people were a bit thrown off. Like, âWait a minute, yâall are just gonna stay in the diner and talk?â Some people didnât quite understand it. Then I saw a tweet that was like, âIf youâre just here for the glitter makeup, then youâre missing the point.â All of that is part of the fantasy of filmmaking, but then we really had a moment with building an episode out of the pandemic that just focuses on people and what was really happening with Rue throughout the season and leading up into this next season that weâre shooting now. People got to see what our show is really about. All those parts of Euphoria, they are Euphoria, but they arenât the core of what it is. The core of Euphoria is these very raw and honest emotions, and these conversations that I hope help us gain empathy.
DOMINGO: Youâre so right. I think these are conversations that we want people to have. That special episode we did is probably one of the things Iâm most proud of in my career.
ZENDAYA: I would agree.
DOMINGO: Just like you said, it really did open up hearts to empathy. I donât look at Twitter that much because I think itâs like going into the garbage can, and youâve got to be careful what youâre going to pick out of it. But sometimes you find a gem. And this one dude, he sent me a DM saying, âThank you so much for that episode. I didnât feel so alone anymore. And I feel like I can go on another day.â It still makes me want to cry when I think about it. There was also a woman who said, âYou helped me to understand my son, and not to judge him but to understand itâs a disease.â So, thatâs the whole framework of Euphoria. If we can do that, man, weâre changing the world. Our art can really impact livesâthatâs the purpose.
ZENDAYA: My parents were teachers. We need those people. So, sometimes as an actor, Iâm like, âIâm just make-believing for a living. What am I doing?â And those are the moments where youâre like, âOkay, thereâs a reason why Iâm doing this.â Iâm so grateful to have shared that episode with you. I learned so much from watching you. I was just sitting there taking a front-rowâseat masterclass. So, if you ever see anything in my future performance that looks familiar, you know where it comes from.
![Zendaya](https://i0.wp.com/www.interviewmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ZxRICH1608_V2-scaled.jpg?resize=696%2C1044&ssl=1)
Top and Skirt by Miu Miu, Cuffs by Prada, Earrings by Alaïa, Rings by Burberry, Boots by Courrèges.
DOMINGO: Iâm going to say something thatâs probably going to embarrass you, but as I walked around that museum, I thought that there will be more people in there someday that have made an impact on history and culture and moved the needle on who we are. I thought, âWho else is going to be up on these walls?â And I thought about you, to be honest. I think youâre going to be on there. I hope that I will be on there as well.
ZENDAYA: Oh, absolutely. Iâll be underneath you in small print.
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![](https://i0.wp.com/www.interviewmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/327804-26-006_V2-scaled.jpg?resize=696%2C1034&ssl=1)
Top, Bathing Suit, and Cuffs by Chanel, Vintage Harness Stylistâs Own, Tights by Falke, Boots by Marni.
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Hair: Antoinette Hill at Mastermind Management Group.
Makeup: Raoul Alejandre at Opus Beauty.
Set Design: Nicholas Des Jardins at Streeters.
Production: Taylor Brown and Perris Cavalier at The Morrison Group.
Manicure: Miwa Kobayashi.
Photography Assistant: Sabrina Victoria.
Fashion Assistants: Hayley Kuniansky and Justin Ramirez.
Set Design Assistants: Joe Rubino and Gautam Sahi.
Lighting Assistant: Victor GrĂśssling.
Makeup Assistant: Alisa Yasuda.
Tailor: Travis Thi.
Special Thanks: Freehand Hotel and Goya Studios.