Rue Bennett’s sister Gia goes through plenty of emotional and traumatizing experiences for her age, with the character being a few years younger than the majority of Euphoria’s teens. As is typical for most TV shows, especially those with such mature content, nearly every character's actor in Euphoria is significantly older than their supposed age. While the characters were much closer to their characters’ ages back in 2019's Euphoria season 1, the timeline of Euphoria season 2 after premiering in 2022 has made the ages of the teens less clear.
Gia (Storm Reid), as Rue’s (Zendaya) younger sister, is one of the youngest recurring Euphoria characters alongside Ashtray, though her role is less prominent as her scenes primarily take place at home with Rue. Kicking off Euphoria's story, Gia was the person who found Rue overdosing at home the summer before Rue’s junior year, with Storm Reid’s character immediately calling emergency services. Having also lost her father to cancer while dealing with her sister’s tumultuous drug addiction, the kindhearted Gia is considered one of Euphoria’s most sympathetic characters, especially in the heartbreaking Euphoria season 2 episode 5 storyline.
Considering all of the traumatic and emotionally tolling experiences the character has faced already, it’s even more upsetting to learn how old Gia is in Euphoria. Rue mentions in Euphoria season 1 that Gia was only 13 years old when she found Rue overdosing the summer before her junior year in 2018. Since Euphoria’s season 2 timeline picks up in January of the same 2018-2019 schoolyear, it seems Gia is still only about 13-14 years old. Gia’s birthday has never been explicitly stated on Euphoria, but it’s also been implied that Gia Bennett is a middle schooler in the 8th grade while Zendaya's character Rue and several others are high school juniors.
While Gia’s age in Euphoria is only about 14 years old, the production gap between seasons 1 and 2 extended Storm Reid’s age gap with her character. Storm Reid was only 15 when she was first portraying 13-year-old Gia, though is now 18 and about 4-5 years older than her character in Euphoria season 2. At the same time, this age gap isn’t very large when compared to the high school-aged Euphoria characters. Rue Bennett is supposed to be 17 years old, while Zendaya is now 25; Nate is about 18 while Jacob Elordi is now 24; Kat is 17 while Barbie Ferreira is 25; and the 17-year-old Lexi is played by Maude Apatow in Euphoria, who is 24. With most Euphoria characters only in their junior or senior years of high school with the timeline moving at a slow pace, the show may not see 14-year-old Gia mix in with the high school drama for quite a while.
However, Gia’s young age in Euphoria doesn’t necessarily keep her out of the tragic storylines - although the series arguably needs her as a relatively uninvolved character in order to maintain more sympathetic figures. Ashtray, another middle-schooler, is integral to Euphoria’s drug-dealing storylines as the younger surrogate brother of Rue’s friend Fezco. With Lexi and Gia being two of the only characters related to the drama yet not included in the center of it themselves, it seems the best route for Euphoria's sympathetic characters is to keep them as the significant representations of morality amidst so much tragedy. Even without being directly involved in the main conflict, the 14-year-old Gia has been subject to some of Euphoria’s most emotionally-charged and heartbreaking moments.