Blessing us with her beauty, style and grace, Zendaya is featured on Elle magazine’s fall cover. The legend in the making donned several sultry looks for the magazine’s shoot — leaving us breathless, of course — in every single frame. During her time with Elle, the Euphoria star opened up about fame, her previous acting roles, her return to performing on the big screen and Law Roach’s new role in her life.

 

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She met her stylist when she was 14 through a family friend and when Roach was running his Chicago boutique, Deliciously Vintage. The two have become an undeniable fashion pairing — Zendaya being Roach’s perfect muse. The public incident during Louis Vuitton’s Paris Fashion Week runway show prompted rumors of the stylist’s retirement, but he’s since continued to style her for red carpets, the ELLE shoot, and her Louis Vuitton campaign debut in spring.

 

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“I ride super hard for my team, especially for people I love,” Zendaya said. “He’s involved in every fashion contract, everything I do. If I have an opportunity where he can come with me, he’s always going to be there. He’s always been my creative director in a sense, and he continues to fill that role because it’s more than just clothes on a red carpet. It’s a bigger thing.”

 

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Zendaya is also securing big-screen opportunities. She will star in a role as a tennis player named Tashi in director Luca Guadagnino’s R-rated chaotic drama Challengers. The 26-year-old describes this character as her “first time really being a leading lady.”

Her character, Tashi, is an interestingly complex woman; she is a Serena and Venus in the game of tennis who becomes a coach after an injury and finds herself in a love triangle. Based on the trailer, the movie is about love, tennis and the consequences of failure on a global stage. The young actress explained how this role catapulted her stepping out of her comfort zone while unanimously appreciating the space to play a complex character such as Tashi.

 

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“I felt like it was a good step into a more, I guess you could say, ‘grown-up’ role and into that next phase,” Zendaya said. “It was a little bit scary to take on, which I think is a good feeling. To be like, ‘Ooh, can I do this?’ You could run from that feeling and stay safe and comfortable, or you can go, ‘You know what, f**k it.'”

“I still don’t understand the decisions she makes, and we had so many conversations about the psychology of her and why she is that way,” she said. “What was important to me was that she was unapologetic about it. Sometimes characters who are messy and conflicted and wield power over other people are reserved for [actors] who don’t look like me, so when I get an opportunity to play a character like that, I’ma take it!”