Zendaya Maree Stoermer Coleman, who is more commonly known by her first name Zendaya, is both a talented actress and singer. Zendaya was born September 1, 1996 in Oakland California. She is the only child mother and father Claire Marie Stoermer and Kazembe Ajamu, but she has five half-siblings on her father’s side. Zendaya is often asked about her uncommon name and she has stated that it means “to give thanks” in Shona, a language native to Zimbabwe.

Early Life

When Zendaya was a child, her mother worked at the California Shakespeare Theater in Oakland, so she grew up around theater and the performing arts. She attended the Oakland School for the Arts and also studied at the CalShakes Conservatory Program where she performed in several local theater productions. From a young age, Zendaya wanted to be a performer and she started working as a child model and dancer. She joined a dance group called Future Shock Oakland when she was 8 years old and danced with them for the next three years. She then branched out into modeling, landing jobs for Macy’s, Sears, and Old Navy among other brands. In 2009, she appeared in a Kidz Bop music video performing as a dancer.

Work with Disney

Her big break came on the Disney Channel show Shake It Up when she landed a leading role after auditioning in 2009. She starred as Rocky Blue, a background dancer and high school student. The show also launched the career of fellow Disney star Bella Thorne, with whom she released the song “Watch Me” in 2011. Shake It Up ran from 2010 to 2013. Shortly after the end of Shake It Up in 2013, Zendaya competed on the sixteenth season of Dancing with the Stars. She was partnered with professional dancer Valentin Chmerkovskiy and at the time she was the youngest contestant to participate on the show at the age of sixteen years old. Zendaya and Chmerkovskiy placed second in the competition, beating out 10 other teams. She continued her working relationship with Disney, starring as the lead in the sitcom K.C. Undercover, which ran from 2015 to 2018. She also landed lead roles in the Disney Channel original movies Frenemies in 2012 and Zapped in 2016.

Movie Career

From there, Zendaya moved from TV to feature films. 2017 was the year that saw her movie career take off. In 2015 she won a role in the Marvel movie Spider-Man Homecoming playing the character Michelle “MJ” Jones. Controversy about casting Zendaya in the role was quashed by pointing out that she was playing an original character, not an adaptation of Mary Jane Watson. Her character was given the initials MJ as a nod to the original character. The movie was released in 2017 to generally favorable reviews and that summer, she was nominated for a Teen Choice Award for Choice Breakout Movie Star and won the award for Choice Summer Movie Actress. Zendaya also won a Kids’ Choice Award for Favorite Movie Actress and was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor in a Film. She also starred in the 2017 musical The Greatest Showman in 2017 playing a trapeze artist and she contributed to several songs on the soundtrack.

Zendaya is currently attached to several high-profile movie projects. She will be voicing characters in the animated movies Duck Duck Goose and Smallfoot. She will star in and produce the movie A White Lie. She will appear in the crime thriller Finest Kind with costars Ansel Elgort and Jake Gyllenhaal and she will also reprise her role in the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming sequel.