Sydney Sweeney’s battle to be taken seriously: “I’m supposed to be different characters”
The role you break into Hollywood with can sometimes become the very thing that hinders your career progress, which is incredibly ironic. Yet, if you enter the film industry, you have to go in with the knowledge that roles are unpredictable, and sometimes, it takes a while to prove that you have what it takes to become a versatile star. This has been the case for Sydney Sweeney, who rose to fame with her major role in the HBO teen drama Euphoria.
Playing the popular blonde Cassie Howard, Sweeney excelled with her complex approach to bringing the angsty character to life. From her issues at home and her complicated and incredibly messy friendship with Maddie Perez, to her intense longing for her best friend’s on-and-off boyfriend, Nate Jacobs, her character constantly finds herself in a state of emotional turmoil, evidently struggling to feel content within herself.
While the show tells us that “Maddie knew who she was from a very early age”, Cassie, on the other hand, can’t seem to exist comfortably in her skin, painstakingly doing her hair and makeup before school in the hopes of capturing people’s attention, or letting her desperation and desire to be loved get the better of her.
The role was incredibly sexually-charged, with Cassie often sporting low-cut tops and brandishing her body in a cry for connection and the need to be valued. While Sweeney’s performance as the teenager was incredibly nuanced—earning her praise from critics—it soon became apparent to the actor that she was going to find it hard to break away from the chains that her role as Cassie had inadvertently wrapped around her.
However, Euphoria wasn’t Sweeney’s first part onscreen; she actually found herself in recurring roles on shows like The Handmaid’s Tale, Sharp Objects, and Everything Sucks! in the years leading up to Sam Levinson’s series. But its sheer success catapulted her into the spotlight. Her fame was unavoidable, and soon she was widely discussed online, her character both praised and criticised by viewers due to the obvious male gaze lens and overt sexualisation she is subjected to by the camera.
In the next few years, however, Sweeney has had to work hard to prove that she is a versatile actor, telling The Sunday Times, “I see it all the time where they don’t think I am right for [a role] because they watched Cassie in Euphoria. Especially because Cassie was such a sexualised character—that puts a wall up for people. I feel like I’m constantly having to be like, no, no, I’m an actor, I’m supposed to be different characters.”
Since the neon drama unfolding in high school halls and teen bedrooms, Sweeney found success with her leading role in the romantic comedy Anyone But You, one of the most popular entries into the genre in recent years. Meanwhile, varied roles in The White Lotus, Reality, Immaculate, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, and (the critically panned) Madame Web have helped to boost Sweeney’s resumé as an actor far more capable than many initially suspected.
The star has taken her goal of becoming one of Hollywood’s most versatile even further by transforming herself into a muscular boxer for an upcoming biopic on Christy Martin. When images of the actor in character circulated on the internet, people were shocked by the stark contrast between her as Christy and her as Cassie. It seems as though she is finally changing the public’s opinion of her, one movie at a time.
