Sam Levinson says Sydney Sweeney asked for Euphoria nude scenes not to be removed | indy100

Eddy Chen/HBO

Euphoria creator Sam Levinson has spoken out about the controversial nude scenes in the third and final season of the show.

As the HBO series aired in the past weeks, there had been backlash regarding the amount of nudity there was for the character Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) who becomes an OnlyFans creator, with some saying it was over-sexualization of the actress.

In a recent interview on The New York Times podcast, Popcast, Levinson revealed he initially thought about shooting the scenes minus the nudity - but Sweeney intervened and make her opinions clear on the matter.

“Well, it’s funny, when I first wrote it, I was like, ‘maybe we shoot all of this and we don’t have any nudity, maybe there’s ways to shoot around certain things?’” he recalled. “And she looked at me and she was like, ‘Are you kidding? I’m playing an OnlyFans model. You’re telling me you’re going to like, skirt around it?’ And I was like, yeah, OK, that’s a fair point.”

Eddy Chen/HBO

As he continued, Levinson went on to praise Sweeney's acting and worth ethic, “I think she’s a totally fearless actor. She’s also just wonderfully professional and shows up just game every day. I adore working with her because there’s such a flexibility in terms of the performance. There’s a lot of trust that we have.”

“And look, we’re tackling this world of OnlyFans where women are being paid to, like, whisper into an ear-shaped microphone. There is a level of absurdity to it that is just fun and we’re always trying to come up with ways to make it feel authentic and humorous and dramatic and also speak to the larger wants and wishes of the character.”

Euphoria season one to three are now available to watch on HBO Max.

Why not read...

Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.