Zendaya has proven once again why she’s one of today’s biggest stars with HBO’s Euphoria. Ever since the show’s premiere in 2019, the fashion icon and her equally talented cast have brought the drama every week, making us gasp, cry, and scream way too loudly at Nate Jacobs through our screens. While we patiently wait for season 3, check out this roundup of behind-the-scenes facts.
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1 Hunter Schafer was new to acting before the show.
Not like you’d ever know! Her portrayal of Jules has us amazed every episode. Before Euphoria, Hunter was a model in NYC, had never acted before, and found out about the audition through Instagram.
2 Zendaya was the only choice to play Rue.
Show creator Sam Levinson mapped out his goals for the project, with a big picture of the actress front and center. “Sam told me that I was on his vision board for Rue, which I thought was crazy. I was like, ‘I don’t believe you. What in my career have I done to prove that I can do this?'” she revealed to Entertainment Weekly.
3 Jacob Elordi was “practically homeless” before being cast.
As Nate Jacobs, Jacob plays the villain we all love to hate. But before the show, life was very different. “I auditioned — this was at a point where the movies that I’d made hadn’t come out. I had no money, I didn’t have anything, I was practically homeless in LA — and I went to the casting and I forgot my lines,” he told Wonderland Magazine in 2019.
4 One of the most emotional scenes in season 1 was improvised.
Zendaya’s the youngest woman to win an Emmy for Best Actress in a Drama Series for a reason. Remember that intense fight scene where Rue holds a piece of glass up to her mother? The entire thing was made up on the spot. It was so emotionally difficult for Zendaya, she told Refinery29 she felt physically sick.
5 Angus Cloud was randomly discovered on a NYC street.
In what ended up being a pretty crazy casting story, Angus Cloud booked the role after a casting producer walked up to him on the street. “I was confused and didn’t want to give her my phone number. I thought it was a scam,” he told GQ.
6 Drake is an executive producer on the show.
And he’s super committed. “He doesn’t really have to pay attention in the table read, and he did,” Storm Reid told Kelly Clarkson. “I was kind of like looking at him to see if he was actually paying attention and turning his pages, and you could tell he was feeling all the emotion. I was like, ‘OK, Drake.'”
7 Yes, that rotating room was really spinning.
Writer and executive producer Sam Levinson mapped out a special set that involved a breakaway bathroom, spinning walls, and background actors literally strapped to the ground.
8 Tom Holland visits the set a lot.
Like the sweet boyfriend he is, Tom Holland visited the set “at least 30 times” during the filming of season 2 and vows to make a cameo one day, even if it means lurking in the background of a scene.
9 Sydney Sweeney thought filming that famous bathroom scene was “terrifying.”
Alexa Demie’s performance was so realistic, it even scared her costar. “Alexa was on the other side of the door banging the entire time and I was just like, ‘Oh my god, if I was actually in this situation, I would be freaking out,'” Sydney Sweeney told Decider.
10 The makeup looks have secret meanings.
The show’s makeup designer, Doniella Davy, revealed to Allurethat the makeup in each scene is carefully chosen to show the emotions of the characters. Maddy’s gems and wings represent confidence and fierceness, while Rue’s tear-shaped gems symbolize sadness. True artwork!
11 Season 2 was shot on a type of film that is no longer being made.
To make the show feel more dream-like, season 2 was shot on Kodak’s Ektachrome. The only problem? That type of film stopped being manufactured awhile ago. “We convinced Kodak to manufacture a couple thousand rolls for us,” cinematographer Marcell Rév told The Wrap.
12 Jacob Elordi feels really guilty after filming certain scenes with Alexa Demie.
Nate might not have much of a conscience, but thankfully the actor who plays him does. “It was also incredibly difficult to hurt [Alexa] with words. It’s difficult to hurt each other, when you care so much about each other,” Jacob told Collider.
13 A spotlight was used to film the season 2 party scene.
While filming the season 2 premiere, the crew killed all the lights and flashed a huge spotlight on the actors. “It’s almost as if you’re going back and looking at photos,” creator Sam Levinson explained.
14 It also took an entire week of all-nighters to shoot.
“We shot [the New Year’s Eve party scene] all night, so we would start at 6pm and go until whenever the sun would rise—5am—and we were so tired!” Maude Apatow told Thrillist.
15 Getting cast was a “spiritual” experience for Alexa Demie.
Alexa Demie had not one, not two, but three crazy things happen before landing the role of Maddy. 1) She saw Jacob Elordi walking down the street and “instantly” knew he would be Nate. 2) She later went to a sandwich shop that had a cheese called Euphoria. And 3) She had a dream about being friends with Zendaya before ever meeting her.
16 Sydney Sweeney created a diary for Cassie.
For every character she plays, Sydney Sweeney fills out a journal “from the day she’s born until the first page of the script” to get into character. If you’ve ever wondered what Cassie’s diary looks like, it’s “dramatic artsy” and filled with moody song lyrics and black and white photos.
17 The show has one incredibly famous fan.
In 2019, Leonardo DiCaprio gave season 1 his stamp of approval. “I just saw Euphoria, which is amazing. That show’s amazing,” he said. Then Barbie Ferreira made T-shirts for the cast with his quote.
18 The carnival scene was “a nightmare” that took six days to shoot.
It was so dusty and cold that Zendaya needed an inhaler. Oh, and add in the fact that all of the rides and camera equipment were packed into just 125,000 square feet.
19 There were no doubles in the Fezco vs. Nate fight.
When Fezco smashed a bottle over Nate’s head in season 2, fake bottles made of sugar were used. “They didn’t taste like sugar,” Angus Cloud joked to Thrillist. “They didn’t really feel like sugar, either,” Jacob Elordi added.
20 Jacob Elordi felt “phantom pain” from his post-fight scenes.
One face cast and 5 hours of prosthetics later, Jacob made his debut as an injured Nate. His look also came with pretty gnarly-looking eye contacts, and realistic skin that the nurse could put real stitches through.
21 Zendaya has a (really convincing!) stunt double.
Meet Britta Grant, the one behind most of the craziest stunts you see in season 2—like the time Rue ran through a highway. That “Rue Run” scene, as Grant calls it, left her with six stitches in her elbow.
22 Zendaya and Angus Cloud were once classmates.
Zendaya and Angus Cloud both attended the Oakland School for the Arts in California. “We had some of the same friends I guess, but I didn’t really know her,” he told The Wall Street Journal.
23 Sydney Sweeney learned to ice skate to play Cassie.
She didn’t perform the Olympic-worthy routines you see on the show, but Sydney Sweeney did take lessons to look more convincing during the skating parts she’s shown in. “I’m a very athletic person but I couldn’t do that to save my life,” she told tmrw.
24 Rue’s signature red hoodie was auctioned off for $8,000. 25 The show surprised YouTuber NikkieTutorials with a cameo.
Nobody was more shocked by the scene—which showed Kat watching a video by NikkieTutorials—than the beauty influencer herself. Her manager secretly arranged the entire thing with producers as a fun surprise, since she’s such a huge fan of the show.
26 Drama reportedly went down behind the scenes of season 2.
Barbie Ferreira was noticeably missing from the cast during the season 2 premiere, and fans were quick to point out that her character had way less screen time than in season 1. As if that wasn’t suspicious enough, The Daily Beast confirmed she walked off set at least twice during filming, reporting a bit of tension with show creator Sam Levinson.
27 But she allegedly wasn’t the only unhappy cast member.
Others have spoken out about the grueling work days, which could sometimes last between 15 and 17 hours. “We shot [the New Year’s Eve party] for over a week, so very quickly it’s like being in Hell. It’s like being in a party that you don’t want to be in. At all. And you can’t wait [to leave],” Jacob Elordi told Thrillist.
28 Angus Cloud hides his birthday for a special reason.
While fans probably have literal pages of theories about when Angus Cloud’s birthday is, he’s never actually publicly confirmed it. Why? He doesn’t want people to judge him based on his zodiac sign.
29 Maude Apatow was always meant to be Lexi.
In fact, show creator Sam Levinson wrote the role with her specifically in mind. He previously worked with her on Assassination Nation.
30 Minka Kelly pushed back on a nude scene.
Turns out that scene between Samantha and Maddy was originally much steamier. “[Levinson] thought it would be more interesting if my dress fell to the ground. That was my first day as a guest on this new show, and I just didn’t feel comfortable standing there naked,” Minka Kelly told Vanity Fair.
31 And so did Sydney Sweeney.
While Cassie is no stranger to baring it all, Sydney Sweeney speaks up when she doesn’t think timing is right. “There are moments where Cassie was supposed to be shirtless, and I would tell Sam, ‘I don’t really think that’s necessary here,'” she told The Independent. “I’ve never felt like Sam has pushed it on me or was trying to get a nude scene into an HBO show. When I didn’t want to do it, he didn’t make me.”
32 Fezco was almost killed off in the first season.
Could you imagine Euphoria without Fezco? While that could still very much happen in future seasons, he was actually supposed to die in season 1. “I don’t know, but apparently, because they cast me off the street, I guess the character of Fezco was [never meant to stick around],” he told GQ.
33 The show’s creator based some of the plot on his real life.
Sam Levinson struggled with drug addiction for many years before getting sober, he told Entertainment Weekly. “I was trying to capture the heightened sense of emotion when you’re young and how relationships feel. The world feels like it’s just constantly bearing down on you,” he said.
34 Euphoria is actually a remake.
When you’re done binging all of Euphoria, why not watch Euphoria? The show is an American remake of an Israeli series of the same name.
35 If the Howard family looks a bit too young, there’s a reason for that.
If you’ve ever watched Cassie, Lexi, and their father and wondered why they all look around the same age, they actually are: Sydney Sweeney is just two months older than Maude Apatow, and Nick Blood is just 15 years older than both of them.
36 Barbie Ferreira auditioned seven times.
The actress finally found out she booked the role while in therapy, in the middle of “talking about how I have been waiting a month and I can’t sleep.”
37 Zendaya and Storm Reid are actually really close.
Thankfully, Zendaya and Storm’s relationship is better than Rue and Gia’s. “She has become like my big sister. I’m able to reach out to her if I need anything, whether it’s talking about ‘growing up in Hollywood’ or just things that normal teenagers are going through. If I ever needed advice, she’s always there,” Storm told PureWow.
38 Eric Dane once crashed a car on set.
Erica Dane’s costars called him one of the funniest cast members during an interview with IMDB, recalling the time he had quite the accident while shooting. “I did. I drove a car into a fence. But that’s only because it was either that or the camera. It was a tight driveway!” he joked.
39 Jacob Elordi pranks his costars in the strangest way.
With a plot that’s so serious, someone’s gotta keep it light on set. Jacob revealed to Jimmy Fallon that he snaps selfies on his costars’ phones any time they walk away. But he won’t actually hold the camera up, making for a lot of chin pics. “I don’t move it, because I don’t wanna be invasive. So I do the slide up,” he said.
40 Yes, Euphoria can be a comfort show…kind of.
We all know that post-Euphoria experience. After the credits roll, it’s actually very normal to feel shocked, stressed, even sad. Then why does everyone love watching the drama unfold? “It may be soothing to see beloved characters placed in an analogous, while heightened, uncomfortable situation as viewers can subconsciously internalize that level of resiliency and strength they’re reviewing on-screen,” clinical psychologist Sabrina Romanoff, Psy.D, told HuffPost.
Janaya Wecker Lifestyle Editor Janaya is a Lifestyle Editor for Hearst Magazines.
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