Zendaya Explains Why She Is ‘My Own Worst Critic’

Even Zendaya criticizes herself sometimes.

While speaking with Entertainment Weekly about her new movie directed by Luca Guadagnino, Challengers, the actress, 27, admitted she does not mind watching herself on the big screen like many actors, even though she feels she is highly critical of her own performances.

“I don’t know if it’s because I’m a Virgo or because of the way I’ve been raised or being in the public eye for a long time,” she said. “Whatever it is, it’s innate to be my own worst critic. But for some reason, I enjoy watching the work back. I think it’s just because I lose myself in the character.”

“I divorce myself from whatever’s on the screen. I’ve already given over the fact that it’s Luca’s, it’s [Dune director Denis Villeneuve]’s, it’s whoever’s, and I’m in service to this other thing, and now I just get to be a spectator,” she said of watching her own movies. “Now I just get to watch.”

Zendaya has held supporting roles in box office hits like March’s Dune: Part Two and each of her three appearances in Marvel’s Spider-Man trilogy. With Challengers, she leads a cast with two costars, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist, as young tennis stars whose lives intersect as teens and years later.

“When it’s a character that’s not me, I’m like, ‘Oh, this is fun, I can enjoy this other person,’ ” Zendaya told the outlet, after noting she does not enjoy watching herself in interviews or on talk shows.

“It reminds me of the process of making it, and typically I’ve been very lucky to have a great time doing what I do, so it reminds me of being on a set or being in that space. It’s the one thing that I don’t feel that way [of being self-critical], which typically I do feel that way.”

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Given Zendaya’s leading role in the new film, she admitted she feels nervous over how audiences will receive Challengers.

“I always am nervous — I wish I was joking,” she told EW. “From a personal perspective, this is my first time leading a film in this way, so I’ve felt that pressure, that fear, burden or whatever from the beginning of just wanting to make something that I’m proud of and enjoy it, and sometimes that can be very difficult.”

Challengers is in theaters April 26.