Hunter Schafer photographed for W’s 2020 TV Portfolio

Hunter Schafer photographed for W’s 2020 TV Portfolio

Hunter Schafer was photographed for W’s 2020 TV Portfolio, where she paid homage to one of her favorite animes Neon Genesis Evangelion. During the interview, she talked about being creative during quarantine, Euphoria, her favorite TV shows and much more. You can check out the photoshoot in our gallery and read the full interview in our press library!

Hunter Schafer might have experienced one of the most productive quarantines you’ll hear about. In the beginning, she spent nearly two months locked in her apartment in Los Angeles writing, painting, and creating storyboards nonstop. We’re talking day and night. Then she purchased a truck and drove it from California to North Carolina, where her sister lives. It’s also possible that, somewhere in there, she worked on Euphoria, the HBO show in which she plays Jules, the charming best friend and love interest of Zendaya, whose character is named Rue. Euphoria can be described as nothing short of a sensation: When it debuted, in June 2019, HBO’s audience numbers increased by 130 percent within four days of the premiere of the first episode due to replays and streaming. Although Zendaya-as-Rue was certainly central to the show’s appeal, Schafer’s Jules emerged as an equally intriguing person in creator Sam Levinson’s universe: a transgender teenage girl searching for friendship and recognition while engaging in a series of trysts with older men.

But if Schafer did any work on Euphoria in the past six months, the world won’t find out just yet—the start date for production on season 2 is still unknown, and when the 21-year-old actress calls from a hotel in L.A. (she’s allowing a friend who doesn’t have air conditioning to stay in her home during a particularly inhumane heat wave), she won’t spill any information.

Instead, she shares the details of her artistic process: how she played the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion in the background on her projector with the sound off while she painted; her father’s obsession with comic books, which led to her own interest in Hawkwoman and the Green Lantern. Mostly, quarantine was a time of exploration for Schafer—whether physically, when driving in a car, or artistically, while sliding a fat marker across a piece of paper. “I don’t know if my style of drawing or artwork would be considered anime,” she said. “I don’t really know what to call it. It’s kind of become its own thing.”

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