Sydney Sweeney asked Euphoria creator, Sam Levinson, to reduce her topless scenes. The actress first rose to prominence for her roles in various television series like Netflix's Everything Sucks!, Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale, HBO's Sharp Objects, and The White Lotus. In film, Sweeney has appeared in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as Snake, a member of the Manson Family, and starred as the lead alongside Justice Smith in Amazon's new erotic thriller, The Voyeurs.
Since 2019, Sweeney has starred in HBO's critically acclaimed teen drama as the sweet and popular Cassie Howard, Lexi's (Maude Apatow) older sister who begins the series dating a popular college football player, Christopher McKay (Algee Smith). As her infamous sexual history continues to haunt her, Cassie and McKay seemingly sever their relationship at the end of season 1. At the beginning of season 2, Cassie strikes up a secret fling with Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi), unbeknownst to her best friend and his ex-girlfriend, Maddy (Alexa Demie).
In a new interview with The Independent, Sweeney opened up about filming nude scenes for Euphoria, revealing there were times when filming season 2 that she asked creator Sam Levinson to reduce Cassie's topless scenes when she didn't feel they were necessary. Levinson obliged every time according to Sweeney, who never felt pressured to do a nude scene or was uncomfortable while filming the show, where there is always an intimacy coordinator on set. Read what Sweeney had to say below:
There are moments where Cassie was supposed to be shirtless and I would tell Sam, "I don’t really think that’s necessary here." He was like, "OK, we don’t need it." 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.
Euphoria has garnered both praise and controversy for its unrelenting exploration of teenage life and relationships, which includes a fair amount of both male and female nudity. This has become par for the course with many HBO shows, and it's not uncommon for stars to speak out about their experiences filming more these more intimate scenes. In fact, Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke once found herself in an almost identical situation as Sweeney, who also thought some of her early nude scenes were gratuitous and opted to do less and less as the show went on.
Filming scenes that contain explicit nudity and strong sexual content can be challenging for actors. As Sweeney can attest to, it is important to have an intimacy coordinator on set to ensure the actors' boundaries are respected and a director like Levinson who is willing to take the performers' concerns and input into consideration to ensure no one is forced into doing a scene they are uncomfortable with. New episodes of Euphoria air every Sunday night on HBO.
Source: The Independent