Zendaya Reveals How 'Malcolm & Marie' Was Made Secretly During the Pandemic

There’s one month left until the release of Zendaya‘s new Netflix movie Malcolm & Marie and she’s opening up about how the film was made in secret at the beginning of the pandemic.

The film was announced publicly in July 2020 after being filmed from June 17 to July 2.

Malcolm & Marie is a two-person film that takes place in one location. The movie follows a filmmaker (John David Washington) and his girlfriend (Zendaya) as they return home from his movie premiere and wait for the reviews to come in. Smoldering tensions and painful revelations push them toward a romantic reckoning.

Sam Levinson, the creator of Zendaya‘s HBO series Euphoria, wrote and directed the movie.

“We got this idea that we could do a movie in quarantine safely with a very small number of people,” Zendaya told Elle about the film. “We used some crew members from Euphoria who obviously didn’t have a job because filming had stopped. I was fascinated with this idea of shooting a film with just two characters. It was like a play. It was challenging for all of us, because it was shot in just one space. Being quarantined together was great in some ways, because it allowed us to workshop and really dig into the material while we were there.”

On Pharrell‘s new podcast, she added, “We made a bubble. We all quarantined and stayed in this very small area in the middle of nowhere. We shot in this house… we weren’t allowed to leave or go anywhere.”

“I’m doing my own hair and makeup in the bathroom and brought a lot of my clothes to help with set [decoration],” Zendaya said (via Page Six).

She also added that there was no assistant director on the project, “so we’re figuring out continuity and stuff like that on our own.”

Zendaya is being considered a Best Actress frontrunner for the upcoming Oscars! The movie is being released on Netflix on February 5.