There are not many filmmakers left on Zendaya’s dance card at this point. She has already worked with the likes of Denis Villeneuve, Luca Guadagnino, and soon Christopher Nolan, but one name still sits on the wishlist: Ryan Coogler. During an appearance on “The Jennifer Hudson Show,” Zendaya said plainly, “Oh goodness. You know, I would love to work with Ryan [Coogler],” and the way she explained it made clear this was not some tossed-off dream pairing or polite industry flattery.
For her, her admiration goes back to “Fruitvale Station,” Coogler’s 2013 feature debut, which dramatized the killing of Oscar Grant and immediately announced a filmmaker with something urgent on his mind and a real community in his bones. Zendaya described the drama as a “beautiful and powerful film,” said she had felt this way for years, and tied that appreciation not just to the film’s potency but also to the fact that both she and Coogler come from Oakland.
“I’m from Oakland too, and I remember when that happened. And so he means so much to the world, but he also means so much to us,” she said. “And I always joke, ‘I don’t know, but I feel like you’re my cousin,’ you know what I mean? He sounds like my family. His accent is so strong, and so, so Oakland. And he just makes beautiful work, absolutely beautiful work. So talented. So yeah.”
Coogler’s name already carried weight before “Black Panther” made him one of the most prominent directors working today. For Zendaya, though, the pull clearly started earlier, with “Fruitvale Station” and the feeling that his work came from somewhere instantly recognizable. On a year when her own slate is packed with “The Drama,” “Euphoria” Season 3, “The Odyssey,” “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” and “Dune: Part Three,” she still found room to make one thing very plain: if the right script ever appears, Coogler is on the list.
That said, she has also recently said she plans to step back for a bit once this run is over, suggesting any Coogler link-up would be for later, not tomorrow.
Still, this is how these things sometimes start: not an agent pitching a lunch, but with a star trying to manifest a dream into existence. Zendaya has made the pitch. Now somebody has to put the script in front of both of them.
