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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Andrew Pulver

Can Zendaya make the leap from tween idol to Hollywood heavyweight?

Zendaya at the Dune: Part Two premiere in London, 15 February 2024.
Zendaya at the Dune: Part Two premiere in London, 15 February 2024. Photograph: Samir Hussein/WireImage

Actor-model-producer Zendaya Coleman – universally known mononymously, without her last name – has never been short of attention, but it feels as if the 27-year-old has arrived at a breakthrough moment. With the tennis romance Challengers arriving in cinemas, in which she is the central focus, the sci-fi blockbuster Dune: Part Two still reeling in audiences, and acting as the simultaneous cover star of two separate editions of Vogue magazine – the British and the American – Zendaya appears to have achieved a new level.

Her career has so far specialised in an impressively high number of attention-grabbing moments, including appearing in a spectacularly bizarre metallic silver “robot suit” at the premiere of Dune: Part Two earlier this year, and the Challengers trailer release in June 2023, with its sexually suggestive premise of a threeway love affair.

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