In โ€œPromising Young Woman,โ€ Carey Mulliganโ€™s Cassie has been knocked off track by the rape of her best friend, Nina. In the aftermath, Cassie has devoted herself to a life of revenge โ€” but itโ€™s getting her nowhere. Mulligan and Emerald Fennell, the writer-director of โ€œPromising Young Woman,โ€ clearly formed a close bond, which she discusses with Zendaya โ€” who has a similarly simpatico relationship with Sam Levinson, the writer-director of her forthcoming film, โ€œMalcolm & Marieโ€ (and the creator of HBOโ€™s โ€œEuphoria,โ€ for which she won an Emmy in September).

In โ€œMalcolm & Marieโ€ โ€”ย shot in June and July in Carmel, Calif., under COVID-19 protocols, one of the first films to do so โ€” Zendaya plays the girlfriend of a stubborn director (John David Washington), who stays up late on the night of his premiere to argue (passionately) in the style of a Tenneยญssee Williams play, about his art. And in a move that Marie would approve of, Zendaya asks Mulligan about her calling out Varietyโ€™s tone-deaf review of โ€œPromising Young Womanโ€ and our subsequent apology.

Watch their full conversation forย Variety‘s Actors on Actors, presented by Amazon Studios, above.