Celebrity
How did playing Cassie Howard in 'Euphoria' act as a boon to Sydney Sweeney's confidence and help her embrace her body?
Published on February 18, 2023
2 min readIt wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that Euphoria changed Sydney Sweeney’s life. Though Sweeney was a working actor long before she became Cassie Howard, Euphoria’s extreme popularity made her a household name. But Sweeney nearly passed up the chance to play the doe-eyed blonde. When she first got the audition for Euphoria, Sweeney turned it down because the role required nudity. But ironically, playing a character that requires her to show her body has made Sweeney more confident.
Sydney Sweeney turned down her first ‘Euphoria’ audition because of her family
Sweeney has shared that she initially rejected her Euphoria audition because she felt her more conservative family would “kill” her if she took the role. However, when the opportunity got sent to her again, she couldn’t resist putting herself on tape for it. Ultimately, she won the role and decided that she’d cope with the nudity it required because she felt it was realistic and essential to her character’s storyline. But The Players Table producer likely wasn’t expecting playing Cassie to boost her confidence in her own body.
How Cassie’s frequent nudity helped the actor become more confident in her body
“The entire process has kind of forced me to go outside of my comfort zone because Cassie, especially this season, is such a challenge,” Sweeney shared with Good Morning America about filming Euphoria Season 2. “I definitely have become more free and confident with my body. I have definitely struggled with a lot of body dysmorphia and been self-conscious. And judging myself in a very sick, hard way. But with Cassie, I mean, everything’s out there, in the public, and I can’t really control that. So it’s helped me in a therapeutic, weird way, accept my body in a different way.”
Continuing on, Sweeney shared that her body hatred started young and was a result of hitting puberty early on in life. “I had boobs in middle school,” she explained. “And I got horribly bullied for it because no one else had gone through puberty. And so, I hated my body. And so having a character like Cassie, and embracing it, has been really, really, powerful for myself.”
Sweeney expresses the safety she feels while filming her nude scenes on ‘Euphoria’
Though Sweeney has spoken at length about how empowered she feels, some Euphoria fans have raised eyebrows about how many nude scenes her character has. However, the actor shares that she feels comfortable advocating for herself on set. She had no qualms about telling Euphoria’s writer, director, and showrunner, Sam Levinson, that she felt some of the proposed nude scenes could be filmed with clothes.
Fortunately, Sweeney has an additional layer of protection on set when she’s filming intimate scenes. Since its first season, Euphoria has employed an intimacy coordinator to ensure that actors feel safe and comfortable while filming more vulnerable scenes.
“It’s a very safe environment,” Sweeney shared with Variety about filming nude scenes for Euphoria. “I’m very fortunate that I am coming up during a time where there is so much thought in this process, and we now have intimacy coordinators. I have weirdly become very confident with my body through Cassie.” Hopefully, Euphoria continues to be a safe place for Sweeney to film and gain more body confidence.
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