'Euphoria' creator Sam Levinson says he went with his gut to pump new blood into his cast for the upcoming season: 'A lot of it's instinctual'
Netflix’s Top TV Creators Go Deep On Their Process At Netflix & Deadline Present: The Visionaries – Watch The Videoswas still a burgeoning Disney Channel star; Sydney Sweeney was still searching for her stepping stone from guest and recurring actor to leading lady;Hunter Schafer had never acted professionally; Alexa Demie was flying under the radar on the indie film circuit, and Maude Apatow was a theater student whose most well-known roles were as a child actor in her father’s films.
Seven years later, they returned to the third and final season this spring as bonafide superstars. And that’s just the lead cast.
Cover Story: Sarah Pidgeon & ‘Love Story’s Key Players Reveal How They Made A Mega-Hit, Their Reactions To Controversy & What Comes NextThe first two seasons also raked in a total of 25 Emmy nominations and nine wins, including Zendaya’s back-to-back trophies for her performance as drug addict Rue Bennett and a guest actor victory for Colman Domingo as her sponsor Ali. Needless to say, creator Sam Levinson is not surprised to see his original cast doing so well.
In fact, their mega-star status has only confirmed what he and casting director Mary Vernieu first saw in them.
“Zendaya, she’s always had a charm, a vulnerability and an incredible sense of physical comedy and timing,” Levinson says. “She’s extremely gifted with dramatic weight, so she can play to that, but she also has a charm that’s almost from another era. She’s got a bit of a Cary Grant-esque charm, something that takes it to another level. ” He has similar notes on all of his original cast members.
He points out Schafer’s “inherent mischievousness,” and compares Demie to Ava Gardner. He cast Apatow because “there’s something very human about her,” and Elordi has always fascinated him because of the “different notes that he can play simultaneously. ” He’s loved working with Sweeney since the beginning because she’s “totally fearless. ”“I wish there was a true method to it, but a lot of it’s instinctual,” Levinson says.
“It’s about who feels right and then surrounding them with other actors that you know, or that you hope, will sort of spark a chemistry. ” Given that the show’s reputation now precedes it, there’s no surprise that Season 3 attracted names like Sharon Stone, Natasha Lyonne and Danielle Deadwyler.
But, if there was ever an urge to stack the third season with A-listers, Levinson and team resisted it in favor of maintaining the core DNA of the show—that “magic” Levinson says he feels but can’t quite describe when he’s landed on the perfect combination of wisdom and naivete on set. ’s Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje plays the season’s big bad Alamo Brown.
A seasoned actor with decades of professional acting experience, Vernieu knew he had “acting chops beyond” what was needed to take on the role of the ruthless, trigger-happy drug kingpin and strip club proprietor who ensnares Rue this season. Rue isn’t the only one that Alamo is playing a game of cat and mouse with. As the stories converge over the course of the season, Demie’s Maddy Perez and Sweeney’s Cassie Howard also become wrapped up in his underworld.
But, while it takes viewers most of the season to truly understand that character, Akinnuoye-Agbaje needed to have a sapience about him from the first scene. He describes a deep understanding of the character from the moment he read the scripts, saying “there wasn’t much dialogue” about where to take him.
“We spoke about Sam’s vision and his inspirations—the Western iconography, and some of the characters who he felt Alamo Brown was based on, Jim Brown, Eli Wallach, Woody Strode, characters like that. He wanted a character that was larger than life but grounded in reality. So we talked about that initially, but the actual process itself was seemingly wordless.
” Once they’d settled on their lead cowboy, they turned to the other actors who had tested for the role to find the rest of the crew. Britt-Gibson gives one of Levinson’s favorite performances of the season as Alamo’s righthand man Bishop.
“He created this character that was so mysterious and unusual that I just fell in love with him as an actor,” Levinson says. , who adds the series to a handful of on-screen roles with his turn this season as another of Alamo’s henchmen.
“Two people like Adewale and Darrell can ground someone who’s a little fresher to the profession, like Marshawn, but Marshawn creates an electricity and unpredictability that you wouldn’t get otherwise,” Levinson says. “Darrell comes into it, and he knows, ‘OK, Alamo’s the heavyweight here. Marshawn’s a bit of a wild card. ’ And then he ends up coming up with this kind of stoic, ninja character, just as a contrast.
That’s something you can’t teach. ”co-star Kwame Patterson to play Alamo Brown’s father. Musician Rosalía makes her series debut after a brief cameo in Pedro Almodóvar’sas two of the strippers at Alamo’s signature club, The Silver Slipper. The season also brings back comedian Martha Kelly as the stoic drug dealer Laurie and Chloe Cherry.
No doubt, the casting is all over the map. Levinson views it as maintaining the philosophy he’s used since day one. Simply put: Everyone brings something to the table that the other cannot.
“We talk to about what his vision is… and see who can bring it to life in the way that he actually sees,” Vernieu says. That said, “everybody had to be able to rise and match the talents and the acting chops of the people that were already there,” Vernieu adds.
“It was quite a high bar. ”Comments On Deadline Hollywood are monitored. So don't go off topic, don't impersonate anyone, and don't get your facts wrong.
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