Zendaya

I have standards I don’t plan on lowering for anybody, including myself.

I would say my number one tip is to know that it’s okay to be in love with yourself. That’s not a bad thing. People might think it’s cocky, or arrogant, or selfish – no, that’s not what that means. Being in love with yourself is okay.

I’m very proud of my skin and my face, and I have no problem not wearing makeup. I don’t wear makeup because I feel like I need to cover myself up or because I don’t feel confident. I wear makeup because it’s fun; it’s like painting on my face.

I’m one of those people who doesn’t follow trends. I set them.

If you pretend to be a role, one day that role is going to break. You’re going to want to be yourself, and people are going to be really disappointed finding out you’re not who you’ve been living your life to be. Just keep it real and be yourself – that’s what people gravitate toward.

There are so many different definitions of ‘pretty.’ it’s so much broader than before. The old pretty is boring- nobody cares anymore.

I’m a bit of a P.T. Barnum. I make stars out of everyone.

[On taking a pay cut to make a documentary] I could keep trying to do the same kind of comedies. You know how it’s going to go, and you can get an audience with it, but then I feel like a hamster on a wheel.

Well I had my kids so young that I kind of feel that I’m a kid too and am growing up with them. The things they’re interested in tend to really influence me.

I have to turn down roles I really want to do because I can’t travel. But that’s okay, because you make peace with things in your mind.

I guess you have to be really open to your acting partners and believe in the story.

In the morning, I can not be without looking at my phone to see the IM’s or any missed calls that I missed and Food!

The death penalty is like the McRib. When you can’t have it, it seems so tantalizing. But when they bring it back, you think, ‘Wow, this is ethically wrong’.

If I have to listen to one more grey faced man with a $2 hair cut explain to me what rape is, I’m going to lose my mind.

[on having a baby] Obviously, this isn’t the time in my life that I would have chosen to do this, but I feel like life gives you these challenges for a reason. I feel so happy and glad to be in the place that I am. I really feel blessed. This is something I need to face and take control of.

Dope never helped anybody sing better or play music better or do anything better. All dope can do for you is kill you – and kill you the long, slow, hard way.

Gay people don’t actually try to convert people. That’s Jehovah’s Witnesses you’re thinking of.

D.C. went under federal control in 1801 and it wasn’t until the 1960s that D.C.’s then three quarters of a million citizens, mostly African American, were given even the most basic electoral rights … With that level of restriction the mayor of D.C. gets to run the city the way a school council president gets to run her high school.

It’s fun to do a comedy and hook people in and then hoodwink them into watching a serious movie. I like to lead in with the comedy and then hit them over the head with a drama.

I look at an audience kind of like meeting my in-laws for the first time. You want to be yourself, but you still want to be somebody that they like. When I go onstage each night, I try my best to outguess my audience, and I like to feel in most cases like I’m a big guy with long rubber arms that I can reach around my audience and swing and sway with them – move them with me. And many nights, I can’t. Many nights I can. But you do like a good manager with a baseball team. You keep pulling pitchers, you keep trying.

I don’t want to be stuck in the ’70s or the ’80s. I just keep moving. That’s my intention. That’s my stimulus. Otherwise, I’d be at home doing the garden.