Sam Levinson lifts lid on Sydney Sweeney’s ‘Euphoria’ end: “It’s all an illusion”
Sam Levinson has explained his thought process behind the ending for Sydney Sweeney’s character, Cassie, in the third and final season of the hit HBO show, Euphoria.
Warning: Spoilers for the final episode of Euphoria ahead.
In the third season of the drama, Sweeney’s character works as an OnlyFans model attempting to raise funds for her husband, played by Jacob Elordi, who is in serious debt.
In a new discussion with Bradley Cooper for Interview Magazine, the filmmaker explained that her character’s ending was rooted in her desires from the first season, where she played a 19-year-old high schooler.
Levinson mused, “It’s interesting because that character from season one on, all she wanted was to be loved. And the dramatic irony of it is now she is. She’s got everything she wished for, but it’s still not fulfilling her.”
Midway through the season, Cassie almost gets a big break on a television programme, but the opportunity is yanked from her due to the stigma around sex workers, and she returns to her online influencer lifestyle.
Levinson continued, “She’s got a million men out there online telling her she’s beautiful, likes, all of this, but she’s just sitting alone as this little doll in a dollhouse.”
For Sweeney’s final scene in the show, we see her sitting alone and depressed, in the empty house left behind by her deceased husband. She plans to turn the mansion into a content house, but appears downtrodden about the future.
Levinson explained of the shot, “I think that shot speaks to this larger theme that we wanted to deal with, which is this frontier myth. That you can go out there, you can make it with a little bit of rugged individualism, you can get rich quick in these new businesses that have cropped up, but ultimately it’s all an illusion.”
He added, “It’s not actually fulfilling. It’s not actually what you desire. That desire is something that can lead you astray.”
Despite the harrowing end for Cassie, Levinson praised Sweeney’s “fearless” acting abilities. He shared with Cooper, “She’s just a fascinating actor to work with because we’ll do a few takes and it’ll be great. And then I just go, ‘Well, what happens if we go again? What else would you do?’ I’m always so enchanted.”
Elsewhere, Levinson has confirmed that the show won’t be returning, explaining that the death of the show’s protagonist, Rue, played by Zendaya, from a fentanyl overdose “feels like the end to me”.
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