Their candid takes on red flags, green flags, and the surprising role of a miniature schnauzer offer a refreshingly grounded look at modern romance.

Long before they were Hollywood’s most beloved couple, Zendaya and Tom Holland were just two young actors stumbling through chemistry reads for a Spider-Man franchise neither of them fully knew would change their lives. Years later, the friends-to-lovers arc that fans once theorized about in comment sections has quietly matured into something that looks, by all accounts, remarkably healthy — and the couple has begun pulling back the curtain on exactly why.

Zendaya on Spotting Red Flags

In a wide-ranging conversation with Robert Pattinson, held in promotion of their upcoming film The Drama, Zendaya spoke with unusual candor about how her instincts around red flags have sharpened as she’s grown older. What was once murky has become unmistakable to her. The warning signs she now pays closest attention to, she explained, have less to do with grand dramatic gestures and more to do with the quiet, unguarded moments — specifically, how someone behaves on a film set when the cameras stop rolling.

For Zendaya, the way an actor treats crew members is among the most revealing character tests imaginable. Crew members observe everything: the impatience, the entitlement, the warmth, the gratitude. They see the version of a person that most of the public never gets access to. An actor who is beloved by the people working below the line, she suggested, is showing you something real about who they are. Kindness extended only to those with power, in her view, is not really kindness at all.

Pets as the Ultimate Character Test

The conversation took a lighter turn when Pattinson raised the question of animals — and whether a person’s relationship with Zendaya’s dog might factor into her overall assessment of them. Her answer was immediate and unequivocal. She would, without hesitation, go to battle for her dog. And as it happens, her miniature schnauzer, Noon, has extended his approval to Holland — a development she has described as nothing short of a green flag.

The irony, which Zendaya has noted with evident amusement in a separate Vanity Fair conversation, is that Noon seems to rank her somewhere below her mother, her best friend Darnell, and Holland in the hierarchy of his affections. She accepts this with the self-deprecating humor that has made her so genuinely likable to audiences who might otherwise find the celebrity relationship circuit exhausting.

Zendaya’s Praise for Holland as a Partner and Co-Worker

What distinguishes Zendaya‘s comments about Holland from the usual promotional relationship talk is the specificity. She does not traffic in vague superlatives. When she describes him as a collaborator, she focuses on his work ethic — the way he continues to pour himself into a performance even when he is running on empty — and on the chemistry that first announced itself during their early Spider-Man auditions. That foundation of professional respect, she implies, is not incidental to their romantic connection. It is inseparable from it.

Tom Holland on the Quiet Language of Partnership

Holland, for his part, has been equally forthcoming. During an appearance on The Dish Podcast, he spoke to the particular comfort of sharing a set with someone who knows you well enough to communicate in glances. When a director delivers a note that doesn’t land right, or a scene goes sideways in a way that only the two of them will fully understand, there is a look exchanged — a silent, mutual acknowledgment that a full debrief is coming later. It is a small thing, but it captures something true about what sustained intimacy actually looks like in practice: not the grand declarations, but the fluent, private shorthand that develops between two people paying close attention to each other.

What Zendaya and Holland Actually Model for Young Couples

At a moment when relationship discourse online tends toward the performative — curated aesthetics, staged vulnerability, parasocial oversharing — Zendaya and Holland are doing something that feels quietly countercultural. They are talking about kindness as a non-negotiable. About the importance of how you treat people who cannot do anything for you. About dogs as reliable arbiters of human character. About the emotional sustenance of being truly, practically known by your partner.

None of it is especially glamorous. All of it is instructive.