Unfortunately my original title, “Robert Pattinson and Zendaya Get Freaky for Interview Magazine Cover,” was already taken, so this will have to do. Nonetheless, I started this piece just two hours after seeing the cover to Interview Magazine’s March 2026 issue. I was waking up late for an early class and I was star-struck. I knew immediately I had to write about it. If you haven’t seen it, you need to stop whatever you are doing and look it up. It is one of those things going on right now that you really should know about.
The photoshoot and following interview are a promo for the upcoming A24 movie “Drama” featuring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. The magazine feature seems to tease the fact that this film might not be what many people expect it to be. And so, the cover is a lot. While it is simple, evocative of a centuries-old family portrait, it embraces excess within this simplicity. It is overly provocative, too unfiltered, too mysterious, too “woke” (whatever that means nowadays), too messy, too random, too artsy, too pretentious, too out of the box, too much everything. It’s not obvious what the photographer, Nadia Lee Cohen, is going for, but it’s obvious she’s willing to step on more than a few toes to get there.
As if Nadia Lee Cohen hasn’t proved herself enough, this shoot shows that she still has a lot to show behind the camera. Born in the United Kingdom but working out of Los Angeles, this Interview Magazine cover adds to her unbelievably long repertoire featuring Kim Kardashian, Kate Moss, Adidas, Gucci, ASAP Rocky, Adult Swim, Aphex Twin, and Maison Margiela, amongst many others. For years she has proven herself as one of the most creative forces in pop culture working out of LA.
A signature Nadia Lee Cohen piece has the mix of a modern version of “A Splashy Summer” by Yorgos Lanthimos with the glamour of LA fashion ads, and a splash of the obscure avant-garde of Stanley Kubrick movies. Her work often features ‘roles reversed’; Macaulay Culkin as Santa Claus, men presented in women’s clothing, Kate Moss being dominant in a relationship with former boxer Ray Winstone, messy and detailed styling surrounded by minimalist background sets, etc. Her films and photos are provocative because they have to be to communicate her vision, not because it is some “easy way out” to instill emotion in the viewer.
I wouldn’t have said this shoot was something “you really should know about” if I didn’t think it was going to be talked about in 50 years; to be frank, Nadia Lee Cohen has done enough to prove she will still be talked about in even 100 years.
But back to the cover.
Pattinson holds Zendaya’s leg like a lumberjack would grip his axe for a portrait, or how a soldier would pose with a rifle for a quick photo. He understands that he is nothing compared to what is in his hands, but takes pride in the control he can temporarily have over it. Conversely, there is a grappling aspect to the way Zendaya pries onto Pattinson, restraining him in an almost symbiotic (parasitic?) and erotic way. The photo is clearly layered with tension but it is displayed in a way that embraces intimacy and vulnerability to an extent that makes it feel way more natural than it is, objectively.
I mean, Robert Pattinson, a man who has played the Batman, Cedric Digory, Edward Cullen, and countless other masculine characters, is wearing pretty much entirely womens clothing. He has smeared lipstick and he wears a woman’s wig reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s drag polaroids (apparently it is a reference to the movie “What Happened to Baby Jane?,” but I insist). His pants are unzipped, and their eyes are looking both at and through the camera—combining in a hypnotizing celebration of modern photography.
The most common reaction to this cover has been something along the lines of “I have no idea what is going on but I love it.” Those who caught the “What Happen to Baby Jane” reference have pointed out that the film is a psychological thriller examining a decaying relationship between two sisters. While I haven’t seen the movie, I did some research and learned that one sister is a former child star, while the other finds fame later in life, but still at a young age—a possible parallel to Zendaya and Pattinson’s careers, respectively. So there are some possible connections there, but I honestly don’t think this cover was meant to be understood succinctly and in it’s entirety.
This shoot is out there. It’s creative, it’s refreshing, weird, intriguing, abstract, perplexing, and I love it. I was glad to see it was generally well received online as well. Whether you like it or not, at least it refuses to be boring or indifferent in an era focused on clarity. At the end of the day, when you look at everything going on in the world right now, this is definitely one of the more enjoyable things to talk about.
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