Zendaya is responding to some specific criticisms of Malcolm & Marie in regards to the writing from director Sam Levinson.

Some critics of the film’s script have said that they believed Levinson was taking out grievances in the film’s writing through Black characters. Zendaya says that some of the criticism makes it seem like she and Washington, who were producers on the film, didn’t have any input.

“What’s interesting is I think a little bit of our agency was stripped away,” she said in an interview with The New York Times. “Like this was just kind of Sam spewing things through us without realizing that we are not only actors in this, but we’re co-financiers and producers with P.G.A. marks. You can’t get those unless you actually do the job.”

“I think it also oddly mirrors a little bit of Marie’s plight, right?” she added. “It’s like Marie saying the whole movie [Malcolm’s film] is also mine. But actually in real life, we do have the credit, this is ours, and John David, I, and Sam equally own this film. It’s not like it belongs to someone else and I just got cast in it. He wrote it for us too, and I think if you’re going to write something, you have to acknowledge experiences of the [Black] character you’re writing. I thought a lot of conversations I had with Sam came through.”

Malcolm & Marie is currently streaming on Netflix.

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