She’s only 22 years old, but Zendaya knows how to handle rude questions like a boss.
The Hollywood actor, who stars in HBO’s brand new drama Euphoria, was attending a Q&A screening when a man in the audience asked her if she took drugs during filming before hassling her to go on a date with him.
The Greatest Showman star was at the ATX TV Festival in Texas to promote her new series, which begins streaming on Foxtel on Monday and follows a group of high school students as they navigate drugs, sex, identity confusion, social media, love and friendship.
But the breakout show, produced by rapper Drake, was the last thing the guy wanted to talk about.
He asked Zendaya, who portrays drug user Rue, if she “literally inhaled the good stuff? The weed?”
Despite being a bit thrown off, she kept her cool and responded: “No … I don’t do any of that, so it was definitely a foreign thing for me.”
But he didn’t stop there. He then asked her several times if she would go on a date with him to get ice cream despite the star politely declining.
“Yo, if I had time I would because I love ice cream and I appreciate that,” Zendaya said, to which the unidentified man responded “Is that a no or a maybe?” before proceeding to tell her she could bring a plus one.
Instead of hitting back, which she was well within her rights to do, Zendaya tried to defuse the situation and told the audience “We all going” before the Q&A was finally moved along.
Fans on social media weren’t thrilled by the persistent fan.
The obligatory fan Q&As are often a playground for mad fans who ask disrespectful questions, with many industry figures proposing a ban on the free-for-all panels.
Nicole Kidman shut down a super fan during a Q&A during a screening of her movie Destroyer last year.
An audience member asked: “I’ve spent the last year ranking your movies by things like wigs, and this movie is pretty wig-heavy; how do you think it ranks, and do you have any other favourites?”
Kidman was not impressed.
“That’s an awful question. I am shutting that question down.”
At the ACE Comic Con Seattle Q&A last year, things got real awkward during the Civil War panel with Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie and Tom Holland.
A group of girls completely embarrassed themselves, talking about their own lives, asking for hellos for their friends who weren’t even in attendance, telling Holland they loved him several times and basically just being flat-out obnoxious.
“You’re making me look really bad, guys,” Holland said.
Another wacky guy bombarded a Westworld panel at the Tribeca Film Festival last year, pushing co-creator Jonathan Nolan to read his screenplay.
He didn’t even ask a question.
“Just a side thing for Jonathan, my brother and I we’re huge fans of Interstellar. You wrote that, and we’re actually aspiring screenwriters as well and that inspired us a lot. And you’ve touched something within us, and we hope one day we can share our screenplay with you.”
Euphoria is available to stream on Foxtel from June 17
