Sydney Sweeney on Being Sexualized in ‘Euphoria,’ Crying Over Rue’s Death and Why She’ll Never Be ‘Satisfied With Where Cassie Ended Up’ - Variety

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Sydney Sweeney on Being Sexualized in ‘Euphoria,’ Crying Over Rue’s Death and Why She’ll Never Be ‘Satisfied With Where Cassie Ended Up’

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Cassie Howard's story has concluded. But Sydney Sweeney isn't quite ready to let her go.

Sweeney, already an Emmy nominee for the second season of " Euphoria " in 2022, dove even deeper into the character for the recent third and final season, and she tells Variety that she still thinks about what else Cassie might get up to. Over the course of eight episodes, Cassie, whom we'd last seen as a painfully insecure high-schooler, experienced endless milestones of grown-up life — getting married to boyfriend Nate (Jacob Elordi), facing down her household's bankruptcy and working as an OnlyFans model to pay the bills (and Nate’s debts). Throughout, the show's trademark surreality and sense of play allowed Sweeney to act out massive emotional swings and to edge into the absurd, as in a sequence where Cassie strides through Los Angeles, towering over buildings and dominating the men below.

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Cassie has been a calling-card role for Sweeney, who had never played a part this meaty when the show launched in 2019. (Last year, Variety declared her turn on “Euphoria” to be one of the greatest TV performances of the century so far.) Since then, Sweeney has scaled up her ambition in acting and producing; never busier, Sweeney could well receive another Emmy nomination this summer. Given the role’s frank sexuality, it's also sparked yet more of the endless conversation and controversy that seems to trail her. In a conversation while on a break from the Australia set of anime adaptation "Gundam,” Sweeney says that she believes, or hopes, that when separated from the noise of the present moment, "Euphoria" will age well, and that some of her critics might think, as she puts it: "Maybe we all had this very wrong."

Every season, we never knew if we were going to be doing a follow-up season, so by the end of Season 1 or Season 2, I was having this bittersweet moment of continually saying goodbye to Cassie every single time. And because there are such big time jumps between each season, yes, I'm coming back to the same character, but I'm coming back to a different place in her life. You're getting the groundwork of who this character was that you kept jumping in and out of. It's a really cool challenge and piece of homework to try to fill in all the gaps. But this is my third time saying goodbye to her — and I feel like the third time's a charm.

Sam's always been very collaborative — he's always talked to us about how we feel about different scenes or what's happening with our storyline. But there's multiple elements to it: Going back to "Euphoria" has felt like going home. I've grown up on the show; it was the first big, huge project that I was part of. Yes, I had recurring roles on "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Sharp Objects," but this is the first time I felt like, Oh, wow, this is what I've always wanted since I was a little girl.

So going back after all these years — with a lot of the same crew, most of the same cast, Sam — you've got that home element, that comfort and trust. And then because I've had so much growth over the last few years between Season 2 and 3, gaining more confidence in my own self and my own work allowed me to sit in the tent and be more part of the process.

I thought that it was wild and fun. There's this aspect of Cassie that feels otherworldly, where she makes grand gestures — you watch a trainwreck, but it's this beautifully hilarious, emotional trainwreck, and everybody's along for the ride. The 50-foot woman is such a metaphor for where Cassie is in her life, and what she feels, and what she's going through. She's going to destroy everything around her to become famous, even if it breaks her completely. She truly wants love, and she wants people to admire her. Does she get it in the wrong ways? Yes. But it was a fun and creative way to show where Cassie was in her life.