Zendaya Had To Calm Robert Pattinson Down Before Filming A Scene For Their New A24 Romantic Drama

Zendaya and Robert Pattinson are two of the best young actors in the business, and they recently teamed up for a new A24 movie. After rising to fame as Edward Cullen in the Twilight movies, Pattinson has completely reinvented himself with an array of independent dramas. This includes several collaborations with the indie studio A24, starring in the Safdie brothers’ Good Time, Claire Denis’ High Life, and Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse in consecutive years from 2017 to 2019, though he has also starred in other well-regarded movies including Tenet, The Batman, and the Boy and the Heron English dub.

Similarly, Zendaya started her career on the Disney Channel sitcoms Shake It Up and K.C. Undercover, but has also completely redefined herself as a dramatic actor. This started with her role as Rue, a struggling drug-addicted teenager, in the HBO drama Euphoria. She has so far won two Emmys for Outstanding Lead Actress for her performance, becoming the youngest ever to win the award. In movies, Zendaya has enjoyed a meteoric rise with Denis Villenueve’s Dune, the MCU’s Spider-Man trilogy, and Challengers. Now, Zendaya has teamed up with Pattinson for a new A24 movie, which wrapped production in December 2024.

Zendaya Had To Calm Robert Pattinson Down Before Filming A Scene For The Drama

He “Was Going Crazy For Three Days”

Zendaya had to calm Robert Pattinson down before filming a scene for their new A24 movie, titled The Drama. Written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli (A24’s Dream Scenario), official plot details have yet to be revealed, though the upcoming A24 romantic drama reportedly follows a couple whose relationship takes an unexpected turn right before their wedding day. With Zendaya and Pattinson in the two lead roles, the cast also includes Mamoudou Athie (Kinds of Kindness) and Alana Haim (Licorice Pizza) of the band Haim.

During a recent interview with the French publication Premiere (translation via IndieWire) promoting his new movie Mickey 17, Robert Pattinson revealed how he went “crazy for three days“ overanalyzing a scene from The Drama, searching for deeper meaning. However, Zendaya ultimately helped calm his tendency to overthink as an actor, helping him realize that the scene was straightforward and didn’t require overcomplication. Read Pattinson’s full story below:

We had a scene together that was driving me crazy. I was desperately looking for its meaning, writing pages and pages of textual analysis. 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. And there I was going crazy for three days.

What Robert Pattinson’s Overanalysis Of The Drama Means For The Movie

Kristoffer Borgli Is Known For Unconventional Narratives

Perhaps Robert Pattinson’s overanalysis of the script serves as an indication of just how unconventional it may be, given writer-director Kristoffer Borgli’s tendency for twisted narratives. He made his debut with the darkly comic Norwegian movie, Sick of Myself, and followed that up with the surreal Dream Scenario starring Nicolas Cage. While A24 was behind the more conventional recent romantic drama We Live in Time, they also produced the Cage movie, so it seems like The Drama could be more of a blend of the two approaches.

Adding to the intrigue, the new movie is produced by Ari Aster, who has proven himself adept at crafting horror and suspense through existential dread with movies such as Hereditary and Midsommar, the latter of which starred We Live in Time‘s Florence Pugh. His most recent feature, the surreal odyssey Beau is Afraid, features another idiosyncratic and unusual narrative like Dream Scenario. With Pattinson and Zendaya teaming up for a film from those two unusual auteurs, The Drama is sure to be a memorable experience.

His And Zendaya’s Dynamic Could Make The Movie Sing

In addition to offering some insight into the overall narrative of The Drama, Robert Pattinson’s comments about the upcoming A24 movie also showcase the working relationship between him and Zendaya. As a star of the Dune movies, she is no stranger to playing a character who inhabits a world entirely outside of her own, and her insight seems to have helped Pattinson break down a moment that could have presented them with a major challenge on set if he was continuing to have trouble.

This would also seem to reveal that they bonded on set, having honest and candid conversations about their work. This likely aided considerably with their onscreen dynamic, and could very well make the romantic tension of the movie feel even more real. This will likely be even more important for The Drama than it is for the average romance movie, because if it does turn out to be a more surreal story, it will need to be grounded in real human emotions in order to land properly, just like Beau is Afraid grounding its kaleidoscopic adventure with Beau’s anxiety.

Read More

Read more about every upcoming Robert Pattinson movie here, a roster that also includes Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and a project that Pattinson is producing.

Robert Pattinson and Zendaya may add to the pantheon soon, but for a sense of where the studio’s track record stands before The Drama, read ScreenRant‘s breakdown of the best performances in A24 movies.

For a better understanding of what The Drama‘s producer brings to the table as a director, read a breakdown of the best and worst Ari Aster movies here.

Source: Premiere (translation via IndieWire)