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Total Film
Total Film
Entertainment
Emily Garbutt

Zendaya's dream role is a villain – and we need someone to make that happen

Zendaya in Spider-Man: Homecoming and Dune

Zendaya has revealed her dream role – and she wants to go to the dark side. 

"I would love to play a villain of sorts," she revealed in a recent interview with ELLE. "Tap into the evil, supervillain vibes, whatever that manifests in. I don't think, necessarily, in a superhero sense, I just mean in, like, an emotional sense. I feel like I usually play the good guy, so I'd like to play the bad guy."

Her past roles have included MJ in Spider-Man: Homecoming (followed by Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home), Anne Wheeler in The Greatest Showman, and Chani in Dune and its upcoming sequel. She's also voiced Meechee the yeti in Smallfoot and Lola Bunny in Space Jam: A New Legacy – and she's right, there's not one "bad guy" in that list.

With a filmography that spans steamy romance (we can't wait to see her in the recently-delayed Challengers, directed by Luca Guadagnino) to musicals to sci-fi epics, it seems likely that she'll continue to diversify and delve into a more villainous role sometime soon. 

Zendaya has also expressed a desire to direct, and she's making her producing debut with Challengers after executive producing on the HBO series Euphoria and the Netflix movie Malcolm & Marie.

Next up for the actor and producer, though, is Dune: Part Two, which arrives on the big screen on March 15, 2024, after being pushed back from its original November release date. In the meantime, get up to speed with our guide to all the other best upcoming movies.

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