Confirmed! Zendaya is the direct, yet calming presence she seems like. (Doesn't she seem like that? I can't be the only one who thinks so.) In a new interview, Robert Pattinson—Zendaya's co-star in the upcoming film The Drama and man who does not sound like a particularly calming presence—explained that the Challengers actor was able to soothe him and give him the advice he needed when he spent three days "going crazy" over a line in their script.
"We had a scene together that was driving me crazy,” Pattinson told the French publication Première (via IndieWire). “I was desperately looking for its meaning, writing pages and pages of textual analysis."
When this didn't get the Mickey 17 star the answers he was looking for, he called up his co-star.
"I ended up calling Zendaya the night before shooting the scene. I shared my doubts with her, I spoke for two hours, and after a while, very calmly, she made me understand that the line just said what it meant to say, that there was no hidden meaning," Pattinson explained. "And there I was going crazy for three days."
It seems this isn't out of the ordinary for Pattinson. "I tend to stumble over the meaning of things,” he told Première (via People). "To the point of overdoing it, trying to solve mysteries that aren't really mysteries."
Robert Pattinson attending the premiere of Mickey 17 at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2025.
While not much plot information has been released yet, The Drama is said to be a comedy-drama about a couple whose relationship changes just before their wedding. Co-stars include Mamoudou Athie and Alana Haim. The film is written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli, who is known for the 2023 surreal dramedy Dream Scenario, starring Nicolas Cage. There is not yet a release date for the new movie.
While writing analysis and spiraling over a scene is one thing, Pattinson has shared other much more unique ways he's prepared for roles, too. For the 2019 psychological horror film The Lighthouse he told Esquire, "It was crazy. I spent so much time making myself throw up. Pissing my pants. It’s the most revolting thing. I don’t know, maybe it’s really annoying."
For the 2017 thriller Good Time, he told The New Zealand Herald, that he lived in a dark basement apartment with unwashed sheets and survived on cans of tuna. (Earlier on in his career, Pattinson also had a habit of making things up in interviews, so take this all with a grain of salt.) Just a guess, but Zendaya maybe could have talked him out of these techniques, too.