In the last few years, Zendaya has seen her career skyrocket from being just a regular actress with decent credits on her portfolio, to being one of the genuinely biggest stars in Hollywood.
This is in no small part thanks to her work on the HBO hit drama, Euphoria, which saw her become the youngest winner of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2020.
She has also gained a lot of acclaim in the last year or so following her star turn as MJ, Peter Parker’s love interest in Spider-Man: No Way Home. The actress has hit a perfect connection with her co-star in the franchise Tom Holland, with whom she had an amazing time filming, and eventually started dating.
Before she hit these stunning heights, Zendaya could have probably pointed back to the 2017 musical drama, The Greatest Showman as the biggest project she had been featured in.
It was not all sunshine and roses shooting that particular movie, though, as a mysterious fart on set ended up embarrassing the actress in front of her co-star and long-time idol, Hugh Jackman.
Zendaya Had No Experience Performing Stunts Before ‘The Greatest Showman’
The Greatest Showman had been in development since the late 2000s. It was inspired by the true story of famous American showman, entrepreneur and politician P.T. Barnum, of the Barnum & Bailey Circus fame.
After first nabbing Jackman as far back as 2009, producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon added Zendaya to the roster of stars for the film in 2016, as was revealed by Deadline at the time.
Filming began in November that year, and the picture was eventually released in December 2017. Zac Efron was also part of the illustrious cast, portraying a fictional playwright by the name Phillip Carlyle, who would eventually become a partner to Barnum.
Zendaya played an acrobat and trapeze artist called Anne Wheeler, who was also the subject of Phillip’s romantic attention. Unsurprisingly, playing such a role meant that the actor had to perform stunts, something which she had absolutely no prior experience of doing.
As a consequence, the budding star had to look to the vast experience of Jackman to help her through her maiden stunt performances.
Jackman Helped Zendaya Through Her Stunt Work
Zendaya revealed the details of her struggle with heights phobia during a Q&A with Vogue in 2019, in which she also acknowledged how Jackman helped her through it.
“Trapeze was pretty tough. Especially for someone like me who doesn't work out, it was tough,” she recalled. When asked to confirm whether her distinguished co-star helped her through her trapeze stunt work, she said: “He called me a badass. Yeah, Logan called me a badass. Wolverine called me a badass.”
While that particular memory of working with the X-Men star would have been a positive one, Daya does also have a less endearing recollection of her time on set with him. In a 2018 appearance with Jackman and Efron on The Graham Norton Show, she took a trip down memory lane to the very embarrassing moment.
“I'm not going to name the person because it's embarrassing,” Z began the story with a disclaimer. “I have very few scenes with Hugh Jackman. So we're doing this thing where I'm basically up in the air and I spin down, and I get caught.” It was at this point that things took an absolute turn for the worst.
What Happened Between Zendaya And Hugh Jackman
“The point is, we're doing stunts in front of Hugh Jackman... And I heard a fart,” Zendaya continued. “It was not me. I want to clarify right here, right now, it was not me.” As though the awkwardness of someone breaking gas in front of her biggest idols was not enough, the culprit went ahead to shift the blame on her.
“The other person is laughing, and Hugh was laughing. I'm like, 'Okay, are we just gonna pretend like it didn't happen, [or] are we just gonna laugh about it?,” she went on recounting. “And what happened was the person... who's a grown man, blamed it on me!”
Jackman - who was seated next to the actress on The Graham Norton couch, sarcastically sought to reassure his colleague. “No one thought that that was you,” he said, before turning to the host of the famous BBC show to signal that they did in fact think that it was her.
To solidify her defense, Zendaya doubled down by insisting that ‘as a lady,’ if she ever were to fart in front of people, her flatulence would be ‘silent, but deadly.’