As the Sag-Aftra strikes roll on, film schedules are being torn up and A-listers are ditching promotional duties. But what’s a film festival without the talent?
Picture the scene. A journalist flying to the Venice film festival earlier this week is wheeling her luggage through the duty-free shop on her way to the gate. Pausing to glance at the illuminated perfume ads gazing at her from among the whiskey bottles and the Toblerones bigger than cricket bats, she sees the face of Zendaya, the 27-year-old star of the Spider-Man and Dune franchises, her hair rippling against a violet sky as she sits astride a white steed to promote Lancôme’s fragrance Idôle.
It is an eye-catching image, but also a bittersweet one. The journalist finds herself dabbing away a tear as she realises that this is the closest she will get to Zendaya for the foreseeable future. She scurries off to catch her flight, pondering the strange and starless universe she is about to enter.
