How Zendaya found inspiration for her most important character
Actor Zendaya has been touted as the future of Hollywood by her Dune director Denis Villeneuve, and considering her career so far, it’s easy to see why. After making her television debut on Disney’s Shake It Up, she eventually made her first feature film appearance in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
In her other film appearances, Zendaya has shown her effortless talent in the likes of The Greatest Showman and Malcolm & Marie. However, it’s television that has perhaps provided Zendaya’s most important character so far; she plays the troubled drug-addicted teenager Rue Bennett in the wildly popular HBO teen drama Euphoria.
In terms of her inspiration for her character, Zendaya once explained that show creator Sam Levinson’s experience as a drug addict helped to inform Rue, whilst the actor herself added in certain flavours from the trials and tribulations of her own life.
“I think Rue is kind of a smush of [creator Sam Levinson] and me in our own ways,” Zendaya said. “This amazing person that is Rue is formed from our collective life experiences. I’ve always said it, but Rue doesn’t feel like a huge departure from who I am.”
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Zendaya further opened up on how Levinson inspired Rue and how his own personal addiction influenced the character. “I know that she can do it because Sam wrote it,” she said, “and Sam is Rue, and he’s done it.”
She continued, “He’s proof that there is hope for Rue and anyone like Rue, and from the beautiful letters and people who have reached out — I am so grateful for those experiences when somebody comes up to me, and they speak about Rue and how they’ve connected to her or whatever part of their healing journey she has been able to be a part of.”
Rue was certainly the character that saw Zendaya come into her own as an actor and is arguably her most important to date. After coming through in Spider-Man: Homecoming, the Californian actor switched things up to avoid being typecast in the future, and the gamble has paid off so far.
Of course, some fans of Zendaya felt that the new character was somewhat strange, but the opportunity to play Rue and express some of her personal thoughts was also too big an opportunity to turn down. She’s very different from me and has a lot of different life experiences and things I’ll never fully understand,” she noted, “but with that being said, there’s something that feels so close to me with her.”
