It’s a tremendous, nearly inspiring factor, what occurs when Zendaya will get in entrance of a digicam.

Earlier than visiting the set of her British Vogue cowl shoot in late January, I imagined her relating to the entire ordeal with gracious indifference. (The mannequin in my thoughts was Ingrid Bergman on the 1975 Academy Awards, dryly telling the viewers after her third profession win that it was “at all times very good to get an Oscar.”) Zendaya has, in spite of everything, been working in Hollywood since she was 13; she’s served as an envoy for Louis Vuitton, Valentino, Tommy Hilfiger, Bulgari, and Lancôme; and, at 27, she’s already received the Emmy for finest lead actress in a drama twice. Certainly, posing for {a magazine} could be, dare I say it, type of boring to her by now? (Really, two magazines: This month, she turns into one of many uncommon stars to cowl British Vogue and Vogue US concurrently—with two separate shoots and covers, by Carlijn Jacobs and Annie Leibovitz, respectively.)

However at a nondescript studio area in Aubervilliers, a northern suburb of Paris, what I uncover as a substitute is a lady possessed. Endlessly leaping and twirling in youthful silhouettes from Vuitton, Erdem, Marni, and Wales Bonner, Zendaya is, as they are saying, giving: face, motion, angles, legs. (5 foot ten in naked toes, she will get them from her mom, who stands a staggering six foot 4.) From second to second, she morphs into Veruschka, Twiggy, Naomi, Linda. She even has Linda’s hair: After showing that morning in micro-bangs and pin-straight lengths for Schiaparelli’s spring 2024 high fashion present on the Petit Palais, she now sports activities a swishy little pageboy minimize. The cries of approval—from Jacobs; from Zendaya’s stylist (or “picture architect,” as he would have it), Legislation Roach; from her assistant–​slash–hype man, Darnell (“You look lovely!”)—are breathless, partially as a result of they’ll barely sustain.

The scene is mesmerizing, complete magic…but it surely all appears fairly exhausting too. That is work, full cease. Pausing to chill down, she intently critiques her outcomes, scrolling by means of Jacobs’s photos on a monitor. (Roach, hovering close by in a bedazzled tracksuit, waist-length braids, and a cream knit cap, leans over to confer together with her, whereas Darnell—tall and finely groomed, with huge white enamel and skinny, twisting locs—manages the playlist, bobbing alongside to “Hey Ya!” by OutKast.) At these junctures, Zendaya may very well be a scientist scrutinizing slides in a lab: Variously figuring out some unusual form she’d made together with her neck, or figuring out that her hair ought to flip this means fairly than that, she is dutiful, current, completely exact. A professional, in different phrases.

In truth, I shouldn’t have been so stunned. Zendaya had warned me about this, the type of creature she turns into when she’s having her image taken. The day earlier than the shoot, I’m led by her pleasant safety man, Paul, right into a sprawling resort suite excessive above the Place de la Concorde, dampened that morning by freezing rain. I settle in a room the place, from a small terrace, the Dôme des Invalides and the Eiffel Tower are plainly seen to the south and southwest. Casting a watch for private results, I discover nothing, solely a balled-up plastic bag in one of many matching armchairs.