Spider-Man: Homecoming's biggest stars are Hollywood veterans, but the film is easily
the youngest-skewing Spider-Man film ever made.
The story surrounds Peter Parker and a crowd of fresh-faced characters that includes Michelle,
played by 20-year-old Zendaya Coleman, an actress and singer known professionally as
just "Zendaya."
If you feel like you've seen Zendaya before, you're probably right—she's been pretty
busy over the last few years, earning increasingly higher-profile roles.
So now's the perfect time to familiarize yourself with the former Disney star who's turning
heads in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
​Shake It Up!
If you know Zendaya from anywhere, it's either those "X Out" skin care commercials, or the
musical sitcom Shake It Up! that ran from 2010 to 2013 on the Disney Channel.
In her breakout role as Rocky Blue, she starred alongside Bella Thorne's CeCe Jones as background
dancers on a local dance series.
A big hit for the channel, Shake It Up! also spawned several music videos, turning Zendaya
and Thorne into household names — at least in households including pre-teen girls with
an affinity for Disney ...
Frenemies
Along with starring in Shake It Up!, Zendaya and Thorne also anchored the 2012 Disney Channel
made-for-TV movie Frenemies, comprised of three intertwined stories about the misadventures
of teens who are feuding with everyone from their best pal to their pet dog.
Viewed by more than four million people upon its premiere, the film proved there was plenty
of demand for Zendaya outside her hit series.
Her debut album
The same year Shake It Up! ended its run, Zendaya stepped out as a solo artist, releasing
her self-titled debut LP through Disney's music imprint, Hollywood Records.
Although the album wasn't a blockbuster hit, it performed respectably, peaking at No. 51
on Billboard and earning critical praise from outlets like AllMusic, who deemed it a "streamlined,
self-assured first effort."
You may have caught Zendaya promoting the record during a Today Show appearance in 2013,
performing her Top 40 hit "Replay" …
Zapped
Zendaya got a chance to headline her own Disney Channel original film in 2014 with Zapped,
which tells the story of a teen who realizes her phone is suddenly able to control all
the boys at her school.
Zaniness ensues, of course, but Zendaya's character eventually learns a valuable lesson
about how to treat people.
The broadcast gave the budding star another hit for the channel: it was viewed by nearly
six million people following its premiere, ending up as the most-watched cable broadcast
of the night.
Bad Blood
She's made plenty of her own music videos as a Disney starlet, but in 2015, Zendaya
made a high-profile cameo for another artist: Taylor Swift.
In Swift's "Bad Blood" video, Zendaya plays a character called Cut Throat, and if you're
among the millions who saw the star-studded clip in 2015, it might be one reason you thought
she looked familiar in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Black-ish
In 2015, Zendaya appeared in ABC's hit dramedy series Black-ish as a guest star in the episode
"Daddy's Day."
Her character Resheida complicates an emotional tug-of-war between Dre and his daughter Zoey.
Though she was obviously a known commodity thanks to her Disney Channel tenure, this
Black-ish role put the young star in front of a whole new group of potential fans outside
the Disney bubble.
​K.C.
Undercover
After sharing the spotlight in Shake It Up, Zendaya took center stage in her own Disney
Channel sitcom with K.C.
Undercover, which premiered in 2015.
Zendaya plays genius high school student K.C.
Cooper, who learns her parents are actually spies — and they want to recruit her.
"For the last time: who are you?"
"I'll never talk!"
"My name is K.C.
Cooper and I'm a 16-year-old government spy!"
And although it might have seemed like a bit of a step back to return to her cable roots
just as her big-screen career was poised to take off, she definitely had some compelling
reasons.
As Zendaya told Marie Claire, "A big reason why I wanted to come back to Disney is because
I saw a lack of diversity on the channel.
To see a black family, to see a young girl with these adorable Afro puffs…little things
like that are so important."
All Night
Zendaya's good luck streak with music video cameo appearances continued in 2016, when
she was asked to film a part for Beyoncé's "All Night."
Aside from the thrill of working with a global superstar she claimed she'd been "obsessed
with" since birth, Zendaya told People she felt like she got to be "a part of music history"
on the shoot, which helped round out the visual album Beyoncé crafted for her acclaimed Lemonade
LP.
As of now, it's been watched more than 47 million times—an impressive number even
when you put it alongside a worldwide box-office smash like Spider-Man: Homecoming.
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