Sydney Sweeney refused to have her nude scenes removed from Euphoria
Sam Levinson reveals that he considered drastically reducing Cassie’s naughty sequences in season 3. An idea that Sydney Sweeney immediately rejected.
We said goodbye to Euphoria. And Cassie.
But the last episodes could have been very different for the luscious blonde from the HBO series. In an interview with the New York Times, Sam Levinson says he thought about a version of season 3 where Cassie would appear without nudity on screen.
“When I started writing, I said to myself: maybe we’ll shoot all this without any nudity. Maybe there are ways to get around certain scenes,” explains the creator of Euphoria. Sydney Sweeney’s reaction was immediate: “She said to me, ‘Are you kidding me? I’m playing an OnlyFans model. Are you telling me you’re going to dodge this?’ Looking back, Levinson admits that the actress was right: “And I was like, yeah, okay, that’s a valid point.”
The showrunner also returned to criticism aimed at the place of nudity in the first two seasons of the series, when the characters were still in high school.
According to him, things were clear from the start: “When you read the script, you understand what the role requires. Even at the time of the audition, if we take the example of Cassie, we know that the character involves a certain level of nudity. The question is simple: are you comfortable with that as an actress?”
No problem for Sydney Sweeney. And the creator points out that no actor is forced to shoot this type of scene: “If an actor says after his casting: ‘Finally, I don’t want to do that anymore’, we can’t force him.” For Levinson, the priority remains the safety of the performers: “I deeply believe that the most honest performances are born when an actor feels free and safe. You can’t get a great performance if there is tension or worry. Emotions get blocked.”
The creator of Euphoria is also full of praise for his star, Sydney Sweeney, whom he describes as “totally fearless and remarkably professional. There is immense trust between us,” he assures.
The entire Euphoria is now available in France on HBO Max.
