Sydney Sweeney Asked the Euphoria Creator Sam Levinson to Cut Some of Her Nude Scenes

Euphoria is an equal opportunity nude show. If you watch the HBO series for a few minutes, you’re likely to see a topless woman, yes, but the odds are just as high that a man will have a full frontal scene as well. As the show tackles topics like sex and consent, it also works to destigmatize the nude body for its viewers. Sometimes, though, the show’s creator, Sam Levinson may go too far. Sydney Sweeney, who has bared a lot—literally and figuratively—in her role as Cassie Howard on the show, revealed recently that she has had to tell Levinson to scale it back when it comes to her nude scenes.

“There are moments where Cassie was supposed to be shirtless and I would tell Sam, ‘I don’t really think that’s necessary here,’” she told The Independent. Luckily, Levinson was very receptive to Sweeney’s suggestions and he revised the scenes in question. She emphasized that Levinson never “pushed” her into something she wasn’t comfortable with. “When I didn’t want to do it, he didn’t make me.”

But while Sweeney does appear nude on Euphoria, both in season one and two, she is nervous it is affecting her perception as an actress. “I’m very proud of my work in Euphoria,” she said. “I thought it was a great performance. But no one talks about it because I got naked.” She compared playing Cassie to her turn as Olivia on White Lotus, a performance she feels more people recognized because she doesn’t get naked in the series.

“When a guy has a sex scene or shows his body, he still wins awards and gets praise,” Sweeney said. “But the moment a girl does it, it’s completely different.”

Sweeney experienced that double standard not long after season one of Euphoria aired, when screenshots of her nude scenes started going around the Internet, and her brother was tagged in a post. “That was the most hurtful thing that anybody could do,” she said. “What I do is completely separate from my family. My character is completely separate to me. It’s just so disrespectful and distressing.”

She admitted that there aren’t coping mechanisms when it comes to a situation like that, “you just get used to it,” though it does help when you have a good support system around you on set. “I’ve had experiences where I want to go home and scrub myself completely raw because I feel disgusting,” she said. Luckily, with Euphoria, that has never been the case.