The Euphoria Gals Have a Fashionable Reunion In L.A.

On Sunday, Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, Hunter Schafer and Maude Apatow had a mini-Euphoria reunion on the awards campaigning trail. The group met up during a Q&A at Paramount Theater in L.A. after a screening of season two’s fifth episode, “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird.”

For the event, both Schafer and Apatow went with an asymmetrical look, Schafer in fiery red and a wrap skirt, Apatow in vivid purple. Sweeney was wearing a subtle ode to Wednesday Addams in a little black dress with a white collar and matching blazer. Zendaya was wearing a checkered cigarette skirt with a black buttoned polo, and a pair of low pointed black heels, creating a very classic silhouette. She had her hair in a long bob with a side part.

The episode screened is a big one for the Spider-Man actress. In this particular episode, her character Rue is also grappling with her mother’s desire to get her to rehab, the police, and a group of drug dealers to whom she owes a significant amount of money. The story apparently got a rewrite after creator Sam Levinson pictured a much worse ending for Rue.

“There was a much sadder ending to this season, and so we were thinking, ‘We can’t leave her here, she means too much to us,'” Zendaya said. “I think, collectively, as a people, we all needed a little bit of hope. We needed something to look forward to, some goodness and some joy, and trying to find that in a very painful time.”

The cast and crew were working on the second season during the earlier days of the pandemic.

“That felt very relevant to, I think, a lot of people, but also important to me when it comes to Rue,” Zendaya continued. “I want people to know that there is something beautiful inside of her, whether she can see it at that time or not.”

The third season of the hit show is coming up, and the actors were asked to share what they expect for their characters. Sweeney said her character Cassie is “looking for a family in everyone else. She looks for it and her friends, she looks for it in the guys.”

Schafer said of her character Jules, “Each of these characters have their own vice in a way, and I think the product of Jules’ vice that she’s looking for is closeness with other people and feeling affirmed in that closeness without any judgment or real connection and safety in that connection. I think she finds it in not the best ways a lot of the time, but I think end of the day, it’s what she’s looking for — what she knows is there with, Rue but there’s stuff in the way; what she knows is with her dad, but there’s stuff in the way; what she knows could be with Elliot, but he’s an addict and everything.”

For Rue, Zendaya hopes that she “is literally just to be able to be alive and maybe enjoy it.”

Levinson based Rue’s addiction on his own experience, which Zendaya believes means Rue can recover and experience “a little bit of happiness and a little bit of joy.”

She continued, “He’s proof that there is hope for Rue and anyone like Rue, and from the beautiful letters and people who have reached out — I am so grateful for those experiences when somebody comes up to me, and they speak about Rue and how they’ve connected to her or whatever part of their healing journey she has been able to be a part of. To me that is the greatest, greatest gift I can ever ask, it gives me euphoria and purpose in what I do.”