Hillary Rodham Clinton is the guest-editor of our Volume IV issue, on newsstands nationally December 5. She will keynote at the first-ever Teen Vogue Summit in conversation with actress, scholar, and activist Yara Shahidi. The Teen Vogue Summit will take place on December 1 & 2 in Los Angeles.

Here, meet five members of Teen Vogue’s 21 Under 21 Class of 2017. The full Class of 2017 will be profiled in Volume V.

What would you tell the first female presidential nominee for a major party if you could? Five trailblazing talents from this year’s 21 Under 21 list sat down with Hillary Clinton to tackle the issues facing women and girls around the world.

Hunter Schafer, Mari Copeny, Muzoon Almellehan, Nadya Okamoto, and Simone Askew. These are just a few of the exceptional individuals on Teen Vogue’s annual list of the young women and femmes who are changing the world — all under the age of 21. Taking action in STEM, the arts, social activism, and beyond, they are the brains, voices, and visionaries whose brilliance is helping to shape our future for the better.

Eighteen-year-old Hunter Schafer has made waves both in the courtroom and on the runway. As a trans model and activist, she’s walked for some of fashion’s most high-profile designers while also advocating on behalf of LGBTQ youth. In 2016, she served as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the discriminatory bathroom bill HB2 in her home state of North Carolina.

At 20, Simone Askew has already made history. Earlier this year, she became the first African-American woman to be named first captain of the corps of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the highest position in the cadet chain of command.

Harvard sophomore Nadya Okamoto is working to normalize the conversation around periods, and through her nonprofit organization, Period, she provides menstrual products to those in need. But that’s not all. At press time, the 19-year-old was also running for city council in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after deciding the best way to effect the change she wanted to see in government was to be the change.

In 2016, then president Barack Obama visited Flint, Michigan, at the request of Mari Copeny. The pint-size activist, now 10, wanted to draw attention to her hometown’s water crisis and went on to become the youngest Women’s March youth ambassador, the national youth ambassador for the People’s Climate March, and youth ambassador for Equality for Her, proving that no voice is too small.

After fleeing Syria’s civil war and spending nearly three years in Jordanian refugee camps, 19-year-old Muzoon Almellehan settled in the U.K. and decided to dedicate her life to advocating for girls’ education. She has traveled the world on behalf of her cause, and this year she became the youngest-ever goodwill ambassador as well as the first with official refugee status.

Here, in an intimate conversation with Hillary Clinton, these five young game changers discuss everything from how more women can break into politics to the ongoing fight for female equality.

MARI COPENY: How did you know when you had found your purpose? Was there a moment? Did you have other childhood dreams?

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: I had a lot of dreams when I was a child, but I think I found my purpose pretty early, which was to help other people in my community and make my world a better place. When I was little, I thought, Well, maybe I’ll be a reporter, a journalist, a doctor. I ended up becoming a lawyer. And I never stopped thinking about what I could do to give back to people. I think that’s the best way to have a meaningful life.

NADYA OKAMOTO: In the U.S., less than 20 percent of [elected congressional] positions are held by women. And when it comes to advocating and fighting for progress — whether it be reproductive rights, equal pay, or talking about menstruation — how do you approach working for that progress in a male-dominated space?

HRC: There’s that great line by Shirley Chisholm, who ran for president back in the 1970s: “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” And that can be in terms of activism, building a platform for yourself, or in public service, government, or running for office. And there’s no substitute for being prepared, knowing what you want to say, and being brave enough to say it. It can be groundbreaking, and you might receive backlash — as I know you have online — but you just have to keep persevering.

SIMONE ASKEW: We had a women’s equality lunch at West Point a couple of weeks ago, and the speaker, in a very positive light, noted that women are required to perform twice as well as men for half of the credit. How do you acknowledge that but also balance the value of nonbiological ideals and capabilities when you are a leader?

HRC: This is the highest, hardest balancing act, Simone. I just finished writing a book about my life, but in particular my experiences in the 2016 campaign. In it I said I thought it mattered if we were pre-pared. And I worked really hard to prepare for the three debates because tens of millions of people were watching us. And one of the reporters who judged me as having won the debates actually said, “She seemed too prepared.” And I thought to myself, How do you seem to be too prepared to do the hardest job in the world? I want to underscore the importance of preparation and hard work. There’s no substitute for that. But I want us to get to a point where women are judged fairly and equally. You don’t have to be twice as good to do the job. You have to be good enough to do that job. Society has to recognize that we are losing a lot of great talent in elected office, in the military, in business, in every walk of life, because women are made to feel that they aren’t good enough.

HUNTER SCHAFER: I want to address how public schools in America are continuing to struggle with accommodating the bathroom needs of gender-nonconforming and trans young people. This was made evident in my home state of North Carolina when they passed the bathroom bill, House Bill 2. How can we as a society and even on institutional levels ensure the safety and comfort of gender-nonconforming students and children as they continue to come out?

HRC: It is an issue that really calls on people to be compassionate, kind, and understanding. We are at our best in our country when we treat people with respect as individuals and worry more about the content of our character, as Dr. King said, and have an open education system, an open society. I was very disappointed when the decision was made to reverse the openness of our military for trans soldiers who are serving our country. I think what happened in North Carolina should give you some measure of hope because there was such an outcry. It fundamentally struck people as wrong to discriminate like that, and there was an effort made to reverse the legislation. That doesn’t change attitudes overnight, but you’ve got to have the institutional barriers like the legislation and regulation come down first. Then you begin to hope people will be more under-standing and compassionate. In schools [is] where all of this has to start.

NO: Running for office is the most terrifying experience ever. It’s been challenging; I’ve dealt with everything from racism to constant questioning about my qualifications, even from my peers. How do you stay close to your values, stay confident in yourself and your motives, and avoid the superficial claims made about you, from what you’re wearing to your hair and makeup?

HRC: Whoa. How much time do we have? It can be, and usually is, terrifying the first time you run for office. And you’re knocking on doors, you said?

NO: Every day.

HRC: Then there’s a very simple answer: If you’re eligible to run for office, you have every right to run. You’re making your case. You are presenting yourself. And people have the opportunity to support you or not. And at the end of your campaign, you’ll find out whether you were successful. But you shouldn’t allow anybody to undermine you and go after your confidence or your commitment to doing this. Easier said than done because it is incessant. It’s hard for any first-time candidate, but it is harder for women. Wear what you want to present yourself to the voters because that’s who you are. You will be criticized no matter what you do. The fact is, people should be much more interested in hearing what you would do, so you have to get through the superficial judgments and constant second-guessing. That’s one of the reasons when I started running for office — and the whole time I’ve been in the Senate, secretary of state, running for president — I adopted a uniform. For me it was pantsuits. After a while, people get bored talking about it and don’t really pay much attention to it.

SA: You are a leader, and I am the commander of the entire corps of cadets. And there is value in your being a woman and in my being an African-American as well as a woman. How have you aimed to be an inclusive leader expressing and promoting the value of all people while acknowledging your personal connection to minority groups?

HRC: Well, it’s really an important question, Simone. And you’re living it. So many of the articles that were written about your becoming the commander of the brigade pointed out that you were the first African-American woman to hold that position. It’s an important statement, but that’s not all of who you are. You are a scholar, an athlete, a leader. This new position gives you a chance to demonstrate the inclusivity, to demonstrate high standards without discrimination and bigotry.

I think it was clear to anybody in this past election: There are a lot of Americans who are uncomfortable with progress that’s made by African-Americans, women, the LGBTQ community, people with different ethnicities. We have to demonstrate that we’re better and bigger than that bigotry. Not by just talking, but by demonstrating. One of my favorite people that I’ve ever met and one of my favorite people in history is Nelson Mandela. I got to know him in 1992 alongside my husband and my daughter. We had watched him as he had come out of prison. [He] negotiated to end apartheid, and he could have been very negative toward the Afrikaner white population, justified on so many grounds. But he wanted to be a leader for all of South Africa. I was privileged to attend his inauguration on behalf of our country, and we were invited back to the president’s house for a lunch. There were hundreds and hundreds of leaders from around the world, and President Mandela stood up and said, “I’m very honored to have all of these VIPs, kings and queens and presidents and prime ministers and distinguished people from around the world here. But there are three people I want particularly to recognize. I want them to stand.” And he called out their names. They were three of his white jailers from Robben Island. He said, These men treated me with respect. I was a prisoner. I was working in the stone quarry. I was treated brutally and badly by many. But these three men showed humanity. And I want to thank them.” That’s leadership.

SA: It’s deliberately choosing to seek out the positive even in an adverse situation.

HRC: That’s right. And lifting people up. And you’re supposed to lead everyone, not just people who agree with you. And to bring people together, not further divide them. That’s going to be especially important in our country, but even in the world, in this century.

MUZOON ALMELLEHAN: When I was in the refugee camps, I saw many refugees who had given up on their dreams and become so hopeless. I told them that when we think this is the end of our stories, maybe it is the beginning of our stories. So if you had a piece of advice that you could provide to children all over the world, especially girls, what would this be?
HRC: Well, you said something very important, Muzoon, and that is everyone has a story. And history is about our collective story. We need to make sure people are given the chance to tell their individual story. Through your work with UNICEF, [people] see you. They listen to you and think, I didn’t know that’s what a refugee would say or look like. I went to a refugee camp when I was secretary of state in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a part of the country that had been subjected to a brutal conflict in which more than 5 million people had been killed. And girls and women were particular targets for abuse, and terrible atrocities were committed. I met with a group of adults there and asked them, “What is the most important thing that we could do for you?” One of the mothers in the camps said, “I want my children to learn. Their only way forward is if they get an education.” That is the fundamental hope of families everywhere — whatever your background [or] your income, people want the chance to see their children educated. So you being a voice for children who are living in refugee camps will make a big difference because people will see them as individuals, not just as numbers.

HS: On a different note, I wanted to address how climate change is affected by corporations and industries — particularly the food and drug industries — and how that is connected to our own government on a financial and social level. I’m wondering if you think we can create change through the government or if it needs to happen on a more social level?

HRC: It has to be both. And it has to be not only national governments; it has to be local governments. There has to be international cooperation. But it also requires that communities and individuals see this as the great threat that it is. As you point out, agriculture and pharmaceuticals have a role to play, but the principal problem is the way we produce and consume energy. The production of greenhouse gas emissions has been warming our climate and oceans, which contributes to more intense, stronger, and frequent hurricanes. Clean, renewable energy is the key; there are energy sources that will dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There are more people [working] now than there were five years ago in solar and wind energy. And we need to keep up that momentum. I think there’s an unfortunate willingness by some in political leadership positions to deny signs in order to satisfy powerful interests that support their political ambitions. But we need to get back to addressing it with seriousness because we’re losing ground and time. I was very proud when the United States under President Obama’s leadership signed the Paris Agreement because I’d worked with the president when I was secretary of state to begin that process. I knew how hard it was to convince countries to get on board. Currently, our new administration is not abiding by it and doesn’t want to. I think even they are going to have to be realistic about what it’s going to take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate our efforts, because we’re going to be paying hundreds of billions of dollars in storm damage and rising water damage.

MC: I want to run for president in 2044. Do you have any advice for me?

HRC: You’re doing so much of what you need to do. You are learning a lot, and that’s great preparation. I would be excited if you ran for president in 2044. Gee, how many years is that from now? I hope I’m around!

This Q&A has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Those lamenting that the world is going to hell—what with terrorism, the risk of nuclear war, and environmental catastrophes—need only look to today’s youth for peace of mind. Indeed, they are an inspiring group, fighting for everything from gun control to gay rights, and effecting change where the older generations could not. And what style they have! In approaching fashion with the same fearlessness that they assume political matters, they make for a seriously radical lot. Take for example, the Japanese model Manami Kinoshita and her spiky red hairdo. She is among the handful of young people who were cast—many via Instagram—for this fashion feature. Also in the bunch: Ariel Nicholson, the six-foot-tall Pre-Raphaelite beauty who has become vocal in raising awareness for the trans community. We could all definitely take a cue from her, and her ability to turn a tough situation—in her case, coming out—“into something great.”

Hunter Schafer

With her spindly figure and mane of white-blonde hair, 19-year-old Hunter Schafer projects an otherworldly air. Raised in North Carolina, she began modeling in her final semester of high school, and moved to Brooklyn last year, after signing with Elite. An illustrator and activist, she came out at 13 and transitioned at 14, relying on the Internet to help her “put a finger on my identity, and discover small queer publications and Instagram ­presences, like Tavi Gevinson and Laverne Cox.” Being in high school as a trans teen was not without its complications. “Going to dances was weird,” she says, “because dressing up is always very binary.” She started out making “comics exploring my trans-ness and my sexuality” that soon drew the attention of Rookie magazine, Teen Vogue, and, eventually, her current agent. After modeling full-time for seven months and interning for the up-and-coming New York label Vaquera, she has her sights set on a degree in fashion design at Central Saint Martins, in London, where she’s moving this fall. “The influx of trans models is interesting, but, like myself, most of them pass as cisgender, meaning that someone on the street isn’t going to look at us and assume we’re trans,” says Schafer, who longs for a broader awareness. The Women’s March, she points out, “was applicable to the higher end of the privilege spectrum: white, cis, heterosexual women. But when it comes to Black Lives ­Matter or a trans intersection of that sort of feminism, people are not there in the same way.”

As Hollywood grapples with greater calls for meaningful diversity, it’s the next generation of LGBTQ+ actors who are the keys to true inclusion. And though they’ve traditionally been secondary or part of an ensemble, the queer characters they play are far from the stereotype. Check out eight actors taking the leap to center stage below.

Acting was not Hunter Schafer’s desired career goal. She was a theater girl, but lived backstage and actually wanted to work as a fashion designer. Making it to New York City from her hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina wasn’t going to be easy (or cheap), but she knew she fit some of the standards of a “conventional” model, so she reached out to agents she found on Instagram. During a visit to the big city in her senior year of high school, the now 19-year-old signed with Elite Model Management.  “A little over a year of modeling made the camera a lot less intimidating,” she says. So when the audition for HBO’s Euphoria came her way, she was prepared. The drama, which is Schafer’s first role, follows a group of high school students as they navigate love and friendships in a world of drugs, sex, trauma, and social media. “I thought I was gonna be in college right now,” she says. But when she discovered that some of her life experiences lined up with her character Jules, she felt she could handle it. As she looks to getting more involved in acting, “a huge motivator is just to create and world-build,” she says, “because I think trans and gender non-conforming people are the best at that.”

Ahead of her breakout role in Sam Levinson’s teen drama Euphoria, Hunter Schafer talks to Rowan Blanchard about her love of fantasy and moving to California

At a time when trans rights are more under threat than ever, the spring 2019 issue of Dazed takes a stand for the global creativity of the LGBTQIA+ communities and infinite forms of identity. You can pre-order a copy of our latest issue here, and see the whole Infinite Identities campaign here.

For her role in Euphoria, a forthcoming HBO show set to update the high school drama for 2019, Hunter Schafer had to make a few life adjustments. For one, she had to reconnect with what it felt like to be a sophomore, before she became the model and artist she is known as today. Secondly, it required a move from New York to Los Angeles. In the show, Schafer plays Jules, a new-to-town trans teenager navigating the trials and triumphs of coming of age. As the brainchild of Sam Levinson, director of last year’s gonzo big-screen satire Assassination Nation, the project is both the next stage of Schafer’s multiplicitous career, and the one which has felt like the most natural fit.

Schafer, 20, has always aligned herself with iconoclastic talents. Last September, she cut a spiky figure at Rick Owens’ SS19 show, striding around the designer’s blazing, witchy pyre in the courtyard of the Palais de Tokyo. Her elven-like beauty – austere with flickers of a youthful sincerity – was the perfect foil for the designer’s meaningful severity. “Rick Owens is one of my absolute fucking favourite designers!” Schafer exclaims. “I had been wanting (to do) that show ever since I started modelling.” It was also earlier that year, at Miu Miu’s 2019 cruise show, where Schafer met kindred spirit and politically minded actress Rowan Blanchard – when they phone me while sitting next to each other one day in December, Blanchard interviewing Schafer, it’s a proper young actress summit.

“I was a fan of Hunter long before I actually met her,” says Blanchard, referencing Schafer’s work outside of fashion, which includes her stint as a contributing artist for the seminal, recently folded Rookie magazine. From the age of 15, Schafer created watercolour paintings, collages, sketches, comics, photos and essays displaying her romantic, buoyant touch for the website. It was a style in conversation with that of founder Tavi Gevinson, who has also parlayed her knack for world-building into fashion, then acting. Working for Rookie, Schafer says, introduced her to the idea of making art to a deadline and with an audience in mind.

When Schafer was 17, she was a plaintiff in the lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against her home state of North Carolina regarding House Bill 2, which, per the ACLU, banned “transgender people from accessing restrooms and other facilities consistent with their gender identity and blocks local governments from protecting LGBT people against discrimination in a wide variety of settings.” Schafer was, notably, the youngest plaintiff in the suit and her considered, heartfelt perspective cut through the noise. At the time, she penned a widely shared piece for Teen Vogue, explaining her position, writing that she was fighting not only to reverse the law, “but also to represent other transgender youth in North Carolina who are as hurt as I am, and to raise awareness and acceptance for transgender individuals”.

Three years later, the label of ‘activist’ feels a bit baggy on Schafer. She sees the course she’s charting as primarily an artistic practice, explaining, “When I took my place as a plaintiff in the House Bill 2 lawsuit, I did that because I could. I was in a really privileged place where I wasn’t struggling with my transness in the way I had been previously. I felt like I could be of use to my community, but before that it had always been my intention to be an artist.” For now, she’s relishing the chance to focus on being an actress, and is already thinking about the worlds she could create for herself on-screen. “There’s a lot of room for us to expand into roles that are completely out of this world,” she muses to Blanchard, in typically thoughtful fashion. “I think trans people know fantasy really well.”

Where in California are you guys right now?

Hunter Schafer: I recently moved to a house by Silver Lake.

Rowan Blanchard: Yeah, she’s in this cute townhouse in Silver Lake.

And Rowan, are you nearby?

Rowan Blanchard: I’m literally right next to her… (laughs) Oh, you mean in LA. Yeah I’m really close to Hunter! Like, 15 minutes away.

Did you meet in LA, or had you met through friends elsewhere?

Rowan Blanchard: I was a fan of Hunter’s long before I actually met her. I followed her on Instagram and was just really captivated by her art. Then she followed me back and we started talking a little bit, I think.

Hunter Schafer: We kind of mutually acknowledged each other.

Rowan Blanchard: And then we were both in Paris for Miu Miu! We were walking the show and I saw her backstage and I was like, ‘I am so overwhelmed and I’m freaking out…’

Hunter Schafer: It was so nuts!

Rowan Blanchard: Then we had a fun night in Paris and got close. We’ve been friends ever since!

Amazing. So, Rowan, I think you’re supposed to take over from me and be the journalist?

Rowan Blanchard: All right! Can I go in?

Thora Siemsen: Go for it!

Rowan Blanchard: I guess the first thing I wanted to talk to you about, Hunter – seeing as we’ve gotten closer since you moved to LA – is how LA has impacted you as an artist, as opposed to New York?

Hunter Schafer: It’s hard for me to compare the two cities from a neutral perspective because my circumstances were just so different. When I was living in New York I tried to make it work for a year but I didn’t really have my own space to be creative. It was really inspiring, but I think that coming to LA has allowed me to take a breath. Having a job is a different circumstance. I get allotted time off and I only have to really focus on one consistent thing, which is being this character. I have room to grow here. I think there’s more contrast between the circumstances of my being in those cities than the cities themselves. They’re both really lovely and I love them both in their own ways.

Rowan Blanchard: Did you ever see yourself coming to LA until you had booked Euphoria?

Hunter Schafer: No, I thought I was going to be in school in London right now. I was on my way to Central Saint Martins (to study design). I had wanted to nurture that practice with my gap year in New York and make a little money to help pay for school, and make contacts in the fashion industry. LA was never part of the plan.

Rowan Blanchard: I feel like you’re responding so well to it. How did Euphoria come into your life?

Hunter Schafer: I saw the open call over Instagram. A lot of trans women I know in New York were sharing it, trying to get each other to audition. So I saw that and then a few days later I got a call from my modelling agent saying they were asking if I would be interested in going in for the audition. I took a look at the people involved and was like, ‘I don’t know, this looks kind of weird. This is a white, cis, straight man writing what seems like a really intense show about a lot of different intersections of various identities that aren’t directly related to him.’ But I decided to give it a shot because I had been interested in performance art and acting and hadn’t really been given an opportunity to try it. I went in, got asked to come back, and kept getting more and more of the script.

Rowan Blanchard: When I’m auditioning for something over and over again, I start developing this connection to the character that gets very possessive in a way. When did you start feeling that connection to Jules and her inner workings?

Hunter Schafer: At one point in the audition process, I got all four of the first episodes. A lot happened in those first four episodes that I, as a transfeminine person and a queer person, really identify with. Seeing the arc of what she’s going through really clicked with me. I could start seeing her in my brain and I sketched her out.

“No matter what I’ve worked on or what art practices I’ve delved into, they’ve always been an attempt to world-build” – Hunter Schafer

Rowan Blanchard: How old is Jules?

Hunter Schafer: She’s a sophomore in high school, 16 or 17. I was looking back to when I was a sophomore and putting myself in the situations she was in. That’s when it clicked. It’s the way Sam writes and the way he writes music into the script – and which music correlated with Jules’s scenes. I could see her and feel her.

Rowan Blanchard: Even though this is your first time acting, it doesn’t feel like a big departure from what you’ve been doing before. I was looking back at your performance art and the photos you take of yourself. It’s all performative, in a way.

Hunter Schafer: No matter what I’ve worked on or what art practices I’ve delved into, they’ve always been an attempt to world-build. Whatever was not in my direct vicinity that I needed in order to feel fulfilled, I tried to create. When I decided to start acting it just felt like another level of world-building, because the way I’ve been approaching acting and this role, I feel like I’m living in two realities right now. This is the most fully realised world I’ve helped build or create.

Rowan Blanchard: Those worlds can start to feel confusing, especially when you’re doing TV.

Hunter Schafer: I’m definitely still in the thick of that. I just got a separate journal for Jules, so I’m not journalling in my own journal as Jules any more.

Rowan Blanchard: That’s a really healthy update! (laughs)

Hunter Schafer: I’m starting to develop my practice, learning how to come home after a really long day of shooting and letting myself breathe. I’m drawing and painting and listening to my music and keeping those things separate.

Rowan Blanchard: The way that Jules’s character is set up in the pilot is so beautiful. She’s very fully formed, even in how she does her hair and the clothes she wears.

Hunter Schafer: One of my favourite things about working on this show is the fact that it is so collaborative. We had sessions where we just tried on outfits for hours – it was like playing dress-up at home! I think earlier in my transition, where Jules is right now, I definitely relied on clothes and dressing-up as a way to affirm myself. More than I do now, I think. Being in high school and having that many eyes on you, or feeling like you have that many eyes on you, and sticking out like a sore thumb. I feel less pressure to dress for the eyes of other people now. I think that happened once I started modelling, near the end of high school.

Rowan Blanchard: Tell me, what was it like walking the Rick Owens show?

Hunter Schafer: Oh my God, it was just magical. Rick Owens is one of my absolute fucking favourite designers! I had been wanting (to walk) that show ever since I started modelling. The space that he used for the show – the Palais de Tokyo – was magic, and they had this giant, burning, witchy sort of totem in the middle. I really was feeling what I was wearing – I felt like myself. It was the closest I felt to myself while on the runway.

“I come from a background of working in modelling and high fashion… Not a lot of transgender women are able to occupy that space” – Hunter Schafer

Rowan Blanchard: I feel like as an actress you do interact with fashion in a different way. Do you see acting as something you want to do for a long time?

Hunter Schafer: I think so! Jules is an amazing place to start, because she is so close to home for me, but I would love to delve into something that’s not so close next time. I think that’s something trans women in this industry might be able to identify with, because we have a sense of adaptability that a lot of cisgendered people might not have to think about. There’s a lot of room for us to be able to expand into roles that are completely out of this world. I think that trans people know fantasy really well. That’s something I’m really interested in, a fantasy role.

Rowan Blanchard: You want to do it all! Let’s talk about your relationship to Sam (Levinson). I spoke to Hari (Nef, actress in Levinson’s film Assassination Nation) about him, too. How did you come around to accepting that a cis straight person was able to portray (a trans woman)?

Hunter Schafer: In the final audition for Euphoria, when it started getting serious, I had to sign something saying that if I got this role, I was going to commit. That meant I wasn’t going to school and was fully committed to filming this entire show. It was an intense moment, but I came out to that audition in LA and that’s when I met Sam, and we became really close. We had a five-hour meeting on the day that I got the role. We met at this coffee shop; he really wanted to listen to me and my thoughts. He’s writing these roles around all of us. He’s listening and using his privilege to uplift our stories and make them complex.

Rowan Blanchard: It feels good that he was able to write these characters with identities that are different from his without trying to make them represent the entire community.

Hunter Schafer: I was worried about that. I come from a background of working in modelling and high fashion, which has a pretty toxic set of standards. Not a lot of transgender women are able to occupy that space. I have a lot of privilege working in an industry like this and I was putting pressure on myself, worrying about how many facets of the trans community would not be represented by this one singular trans character.

Rowan Blanchard: Well, there aren’t a lot of trans roles in Hollywood right now, so of course you’re going to feel that pressure and expectation.

Hunter Schafer: That’s a really good point. There’s much more freedom in the idea that people can represent themselves instead of feeling that pressure to represent others.

Rowan Blanchard: Did you see the Hilma Klint show (at the Guggenheim) yet? I was thinking about her, and (feminist filmmaker) Barbara Loden…

Hunter Schafer: Yeah, I feel like we all identify with (Loden’s 1970 film) Wanda!

Rowan Blanchard: I wanna remake Wanda with you in it! (laughs) Yeah, I was just thinking about all these women who made work that was never seen at the time). Even though I never feel like things are changing, it does feel nice that we’re making things that get to be seen in our own lifetimes, and we don’t have to hide them.

Hunter Schafer: That’s a huge thing. Just think about all the beautiful things that are made behind closed doors, the things that haven’t been seen yet or are still to come – especially from your brain! Women are fucking powerful.

Thora Siemsen: You’ve both just said some really lovely things to each other and I feel lucky to have talked to you. Rowan, come and take all of our jobs, please.

Rowan Blanchard: Oh God, no, I couldn’t! I can’t.

Hunter Schafer: Yeah, this is the best interview I’ve ever had.

Rowan Blanchard: Aw, I love you!

It’s just a couple of hours away from the red carpet premiere of HBO’s next big show Euphoria, and star Hunter Schafer is debating whether or not she should get bangs. It’s her first premiere, and instead of having meticulously mapped out every detail, Schafer is following her instincts, moment by moment—and keeping calm, cool, and collected throughout. Take this, for example: Despite being in the middle of makeup and hair (she ultimately opted for wispy baby bangs left loose from her pulled-back hair), it was Schafer herself who ran out of her Silver Lake apartment to open the building’s door for me when I arrived, rather than send out one of the many people buzzing around her apartment. Despite staring down the biggest night in her career thus far, the Raleigh, North Carolina, native is still keeping it real—just one of the many reasons she was cast alongside stars like Zendaya in the upcoming gritty teen saga.

The actress, who earned fame as a model prior to the show, posing for the likes of Dior, Miu Miu, Rick Owens, and Marc Jacobs, also happens to be exceedingly relaxed about what she’s wearing on this special evening. “I’m going to be honest and say that we did the fitting this morning,” she says, before adding that, like with the bangs, she had one thing in mind but ended up going in a softer direction, with a floral Rodarte dress in a muted palette, paired with metallic combat boots. You could say the whole night is an exercise in restraint, something Schafer is now getting used to. “I’m lucky to have a solid team to keep me in check and say, ‘You probably shouldn’t wear head-to-toe Comme des Garçons sculptural shit on your first premiere,’” she jokes. So she settled on Rodarte, a brand with punk roots that has perfected the red-carpet realm. “I feel really happy about the piece we choose,” Schafer says. “And Rodarte is obviously really special.”

“Special” is a word that gets thrown around a lot when talking to Schafer about the premiere, to which she is bringing her mom and sister as her dates. (Her brother and dad are back in Raleigh, as her brother finishes his eighth-grade finals, which her mom lovingly asks me to mention.) But so is the word “scary.” That and similar descriptors have been used an awful lot by those close to the show, from the costume designer Heidi Bivens, who recently told W it’s more intense than Harmony Korine’s teen classic Kids, to, now, Schafer. “As far as the realness, it’s comparable [to Kids], but Euphoria is specific to 2019,” Schafer says. “I don’t think Euphoria can capture the entirety of the teen-in-high-school experience, but I think it is realistic. It’s scary in that sense because I don’t think we get to see a lot of depictions of high school this raw. I think that truth might scare people.”

In the show, Schafer plays Jules, a transfer student in her junior year who “frequently affirms herself through a toxic relationship with men,” as Schafer describes, which gets “challenged from the get-go,” thanks to her relationship with Zendaya’s character, Rue. “Rue doesn’t so much help Jules get out of the toxic pattern as much as Rue becomes an alternative,” Schafer explains. For the role, Schafer ended up drawing “a lot from her own experience” and lending the sensitivity with which Jules is portrayed. “It was a very collaborative process, and Jules had a similar storyline to my life, at least as far as transition timelines—not what happens within Euphoria,” she says. “Also, [writer] Sam Levinson was really open to collaboration because he can only write to some identities, so it was up to us to help him fill in little pieces.”

As much as Schafer tried to step back out of the character when she returned home from work each night, she says it was a struggle: “The lines got blurred.” But her castmate Zendaya offered support and plenty of laughs to lighten the heavy mood. “I remember one of the first days Zendaya and I shot together we were filming in a blanket fort that the crew had built and she has glitter tears in this scene so we basically got to act really high together, which was fun, and that sort of began the glitter-absolutely-everywhere spiral that continued for the rest of season,” Schafer recalls. “Because Zendaya was my main scene partner throughout the season, we’ve seen each other in about every emotional state that we have. It kind of puts the friendships on hyperspeed.”

As for how that onscreen vulnerability compares to stepping onto the runway, Schafer explains, “I think the anticipation is similar. When you’re anticipating a scene, you get nervous for it and you’re trying to combat it so you don’t fuck up. It’s similar because you have to have your guard down for these scenes and let yourself be.”

But one is definitely harder for her than the other. “I would say runway is easier because your job is to look good or play a character that is just going somewhere,” she says. “It’s rather physical, whereas acting is terrifying because you’re dealing with your subconscious and those can be murky waters. But I definitely can say that I enjoy acting more as an artist.”

What might be hardest of all, though, is letting her mom watch every moment of her screen time in the show. “My mom has seen the pilot. We had to skip through one scene, but overall she reacted well to it,” Schafer says. “She wanted to see the next episode, which was a good sign. But that was a scary scene. I don’t know if she’s seen these sides of me.” So will she get to see that scene tonight? “I might have to cover her eyes for it. We’ll see. We’ll probably have to decompress. We’ll have to talk about it a little, and maybe order some ice cream at home and let it out.”

We live in tumultuous times. On one end, hate and right wing extremism have suddenly plunged itself out in the open. Then on the other, there’s the so-called ‘woke culture’ that comes with its own set of pitfalls, namely the tokenization of minorities and marginalized communities that for so long have been erased from mainstream pop culture.

“Nobody is getting their head cut off,” Zendaya says. She’s referring to the hubbub over her latest project: “Euphoria,” HBO’s unflinching portrait of teen life.

It’s true. There aren’t the beheadings viewers came to expect from “Game of Thrones.” But that doesn’t mean the new HBO drama isn’t raising eyebrows. The first episode includes a drug overdose, an unsettling statutory rape scene, and a sexual encounter involving unsolicited choking. ”Euphoria” has spurred controversy ahead of its Sunday premiere for its gritty use of sex, drugs, and nudity to illustrate the grown-up situations Generation Z must navigate. While such mature content has become a hallmark of HBO, adding teen characters to the mix has provoked criticism.

Inside the energetic Crossroads restaurant on Melrose Avenue, Zendaya and her costar, Hunter Schafer, are deep in discussion about the need for a dark, uncensored exploration on teen life — an antidote to the glossier version typically pushed on television.

“This show is in no way to tell people what the right thing to do is,” Zendaya, 22, says. “This is not ‘The Moral Message Show.’ This is to inspire compassion among people for other human beings and to understand that everyone has a story you don’t know about, a battle that they’re fighting that you don’t understand. I don’t find the show shocking, but there will be people who do.”

“But I also think that’s what being a teenager is,” Schafer, 20, adds. “Finding the middle ground between being an adult and being a kid and that transition. I think that’s one of the hardest parts, is finding yourself in adult situations but not knowing how to navigate them. And that makes people uncomfortable — because it is uncomfortable. So, yeah, it’s not easy to watch, but to some degree, everyone will be able to relate to it because everyone has experienced what that’s like on some level.”

Based on the Israeli series of the same name, “Euphoria” was adapted for HBO by Sam Levinson (the son of filmmaker Barry Levinson) and counts rapper Drake — a graduate of the more wholesome teen series “Degrassi: The Next Generation” — as an executive producer. Levinson, 34, pulled from his own troubled youth and battle with anxiety, depression and addiction to opiates in creating the series.

“I think people like to kind of put their head in the sand when it comes to some of these conversations,” Levinson says in a telephone interview. “And there’s such a generational disconnect. It’s not like 30 years ago, when one generation could provide at least a bit of a road map for the next generation. Life now moves at such a fast speed. I think we’re all adapting at the same time, so it’s difficult to give any kind of real advice to the younger generation about how to navigate the world.”

While “Euphoria” features an ensemble of teen characters, it centers on the intimacy that develops between Rue and Jules, who become each other’s confidantes and advocates amid the pressures of adolescence. The series is full of hefty material for Zendaya and Schafer to dig into: Zendaya’s Rue is a high school student fresh off an unsuccessful stint in rehab who can’t stop her destructive compulsions — “I know you’re not allowed to say it, but drugs are kinda cool,” Rue confesses while riding a high. Schafer’s Jules is a trans girl who recently moved into town and is battling her own demons, including a habit of spending her nights having sex with closeted older men and a harrowing past of self-harm.

“I think Rue and Jules are soul mates,” Zendaya says. “Whether that’s healthy is questionable. But I think that at a point in time, there’s a connection that nobody else will be able to understand but them and they’ll always have it. … There’s a lot of beauty in it, but there’s also a lot of toxicity. They’re both leaning on each other in a way and finding comfort or safety … or a bit of a new addiction within each other.”

“They become each other’s alternative to the toxic elements in their lives” is how Schafer describes the relationship between the characters.

Stepping into the roles was its own coming-of-age tightrope for the young actresses.

A Disney Channel darling since the age of 13 in 2010’s “Shake It Up,” Zendaya (whose last name is Coleman) was facing a transition in her career. During breaks from her subsequent Disney gig, “K.C. Undercover,” she built a list of credits that took her beyond the bounds of Mickey Mouse. She appeared in 2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming” as Peter Parker’s love interest, MJ — a part she’ll reprise in the forthcoming sequel “Spider-Man: Far From Home.” She also starred in 2017’s big-screen musical “The Greatest Showman.” But plotting her post-Disney career after “K.C. Undercover” came to an end in early 2018 proved daunting.

“It’s very hard to go from what feels like elementary school and feels like the same grade over and over and over again to finally being able to go to college and then having to go back to the same [elementary] grade,” she says. “It was just tough. I’m not saying it made me sad or anything. But it didn’t feel great. And after [“K.C.”] was done, it was weird because I’ve had a consistent job, or that kind of schedule, since I was, like, 13. So then to face the fact that I didn’t have that anymore was a little weird. And all the scripts I was getting just did not feel right to me because they were with the pretense of what I’d done already, still in that world. Nothing fit. Nothing worked.”

For Schafer, “Euphoria” marks her first TV series. The Raleigh, N.C., native had been working in New York as a model for fashion heavy-hitters like Dior and Marc Jacobs. She was set to go to fashion design school when she saw a casting call on Instagram seeking a trans actress for the series.

“I was a little scared about being trans and falling into an archetype,” she says. “But after getting a few scripts, it started to make more sense to me and started to resonate even more.”

On the day of this interview, the two are nestled side-by-side in a booth at the celeb-spotting restaurant (on this visit, Tobey Maguire and Sara Gilbert). There’s talk of whether oat milk is worth the hype — Zendaya is skeptical, while Schafer touts it as the “whole milk of the non-dairy milks” — and a duet of Cher’s “Believe” as it blares through the speakers.

When the conversation turns to whether they share any similarities with the characters they play, the two become contemplative.

“One of the first things that lined up was just that we had similar transition timelines — we both transitioned on the earlier side of high school,” Schafer says. “I kind of could see her from the beginning, as far as what she looks like and what her energy was like, and it wasn’t that far off. But I would say [Jules] was probably a little more confident than me in high school. Where we really differ is the way we coped and the way we survived high school. Because my way of coping was fantasizing about where I could get myself in the future. [Jules] wants to have relationships and go to parties and has built these toxic relationships with men that she turns to for affirmation.”

Zendaya says it’s hard to explain how she relates to Rue. Unlike the character, the actress says she has never done drugs or consumed alcohol. “I know in that sense people kind of assume this is a huge acting stretch for me,” she says. “But as a human being, I think Rue is very similar to me. She’s a good person. There’s an innocence to her.”

Beyond the shocking nature of the series, the two hope “Euphoria” provides a sobering window into the anxiety and stress facing young people today. There have been a number of studies that assert Gen Z to be the most stressed and depressed generation.

“I think a lot of people don’t understand how intense and complicated it is to be a teenager today,” Schafer says. “I think a lot of parents see their kids on their phones and think they’re a [damn] zombie. That is an entirely alternate reality that they are immersed in in that moment that is probably way more complicated and fast-paced than [parents] even realize.”

“Even I don’t fully get it,” Zendaya says. “But I understand a good percent of it. Rue says in the first episode something like, ‘We just showed up here without a map or compass.’ And it’s true, because we don’t know what the … we’re doing. Nobody actually knows what they’re doing. Imagine growing up in social media and being a child. It’s not easy. It’s confusing. And it’s uncomfortable. It’s a lot of things. It’s created by the very people that call us the zombies or whatever. It’s like, we’re the byproduct of this … , you know?”

The 20-year-old actress and model Hunter Schafer stars this summer opposite Zendaya in HBO’s sex-and-drugs-fueled high school drama Euphoria. Off camera, the Raleigh, North Carolina native is interested in fashion design and has devoted her time to fighting the state’s House Bill 2, which forces individuals to use bathrooms corresponding to the sex assigned to them at birth. “Dude, acting has been a trip. I had never really acted before, so I really didn’t know what I was doing. The casting director for Euphoria set me up with an acting coach in New York, and he completely flipped my world around. The way you learn to utilize your brain and your emotions really freaked me out. We did something called Effective Memorization, where you put yourself into a relaxed state so that you can walk through a place from your childhood—almost like time travel.”

The transgender actress talks about her newfound fame, raves about Zendaya and explains why she doesn’t want to be called an activist.

As high-chasing bad girls on HBO, IRL pals Barbie Ferreira and Hunter Schafer recast the archetype.

When HBO’s Euphoria hit screens in June, filling the network’s GoT-shaped void with a pure-cut dose of contemporary teen life, its trippy dramatics and issue-tackling realism had been preceded by a much-publicized production. While Zendaya’s lead role as the high-chasing Rue and Drake’s attachment as executive producer accounted for much of the buzz, the show’s unorthodox recruiting tactics didn’t stop there. Hunter Schafer and Barbie Ferreira, both non-professional actors who happen to deliver two of the show’s most surprising and complex performances, each came across the show’s open casting call on Instagram.

On paper, Schafer plays Jules and Ferreria plays Kat, two ennui-stricken friends in Rue’s orbit. The first episode establishes their respective archetypes: Jules the put-upon transfer student and Kat the posturing bad girl. But each of their storylines touch on distinctly of-the-moment themes, from body shame to identity politics to app hookups gone wrong. While the show, trafficking in narrative clout and meta-narrative social savvy, may seem particularly suited to both Schafer and Ferreira’s progressive modeling tracks, their well observed performances suggest major dramatic careers to come.

Ferreira says 16-year-old Kat reflects much of her personality pre-modeling. “[16] was a special age for me, because that’s when I started breaking out of these insecurities, and just thinking that I am not worth it,” says Ferreira, who, after being scouted by American Apparel in high school, became an early drumbeater of the body-positivity movement. After she and her recently divorced mom moved from Queens to suburbia, Ferreira, like Kat, put up walls around her creative impulses. “I mean, I am like a theater kid; all I wanted was to be on Disney Channel. I would try my hardest to see managers by myself without my mom,” she says. “[But] I started isolating myself even more after [I started modeling] because my classmates never really gave a fuck about me… Our experiences aren’t identical, but the feelings are all the same. The lines are blurred between where Kat ends and where I begin.”

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, Schafer harbored no such showbiz dreams. “I was never really into acting; I was so shy and not sure of myself. I didn’t ever see myself being able to do [this],” says Schafer. After being diagnosed with gender dysphoria in ninth grade, Schafer’s first taste of the spotlight was as a plaintiff in the ACLU’s lawsuit against the state’s anti-LGBT law HB2, which forced trans people to use public restrooms according to their assigned gender. Before serving as the face of the “bathroom bill” and then as a model for the likes of Versace, Helmut Lang and Miu Miu, Schafer says she experienced some trauma similar to that of Jules, which the role brought back to the surface. “Of course, it was uncomfortable to revisit those places in my life because I was pretty insecure at the time and I did not really know who I was,” she says. “The way I have functioned, as a human being, is to push through [painful experiences] and work really hard, so that I had a good future. [But] a hundred percent, Jules and I have a similar transition timeline, as far as [being] in high school and dealing with that in front of your peers.”

Ultimately the similarities between Schafer’s past and Jules’s present endowed her with a whole new outlook. “Acting blew my mind,” she says, recalling her first session with an HBO-enlisted coach. “It’s definitely been therapeutic to look back at those points in my life and to relive them,” she says. “It’s like picking old scabs on purpose because you want to bleed a little again.” Acting out the first episode’s climax, which takes place at a crowded party, was a learning curve, Schafer adds: “Frankly I was terrified for that scene because I never had to be that open in front of a camera before and there were like 200 extras watching it happen… I had never screamed at anyone like that before in my real life.”

Between filming or rubbing shoulders with Drake (“It was fun to be in the middle of work, and then be like, ‘Oh, Drake’s here,'” says Ferreira of set life), Schafer and Ferreira, who had briefly met in New York, found a chance to reconnect on set, free from modeling-world varnish. “We [met] at some random fashion-y event, some award show, so we didn’t really hit it off,” Ferreira recalls. “But now Hunter is like my best friend. We had two very different spirals in high school, but the bottom line was that we both needed to get out of wherever we were. To this day, we’ll be in the car together, and just scream, like, ‘Sis… What is going on?!’ She is the only [other] person who gets it.”

Whatever turbulence they experienced in high school has made multi-hyphenate status that much sweeter. “[We] both are so thrilled about the transition [to acting],” echoes Schafer. “While modeling was fun and we got to travel and make some cool work, doing this project together and getting to be artists together is immeasurably valuable.”

With Euphoria mid-season and continuing to garner buzz, the saga of Ferreira and Schafer has only begun to take shape. But as their characters and careers illustrate, stories are best when you don’t know the ending.

We’re four episodes deep into HBO’s polarizing new series Euphoria, and it’s all any of us at Who What Wear can talk about. “Did you watch last night’s episode?!” “Can we please discuss that one scene?” “I’m officially shook.” Yes, it’s dark and controversial and oftentimes uncomfortable to watch, but truth be told, it contains some of the best performances from a young cast I’ve seen in a long time. One such performance is that of Hunter Schafer. As new-to-town outsider and transgender teen Jules, Schafer has some of Euphoria’s most shocking, gut-wrenching, and beautiful scenes. But here’s the mind-blowing part: This is actually Schafer’s first-ever acting job.

While Schafer reads like a seasoned actress on screen, it wasn’t too long ago (just last year, in fact) that acting wasn’t even on her radar. The North Carolina native and LGBTQ+ activist (she appeared on Teen Vogue’s 21 Under 21 list) was thriving in New York City, changing the face of fashion one runway and major editorial at a time, when an open casting call and the local transgender community led Schafer to her next big calling: Hollywood It girl.

It’s easy to see why Euphoria casting director Jennifer Venditti gravitated to the 20-year-old for the character of Jules. When we meet Schafer on the set of our Who What Wear shoot in New York last month, she exuded a cheerful, ethereal energy that could not be ignored. I had to make a point not to stare at the delicate features that have made her muse-worthy to such industry elite as Dior, Miu Miu, and Marc Jacobs, to name just a few. But it’s not until I sat down with Schafer, feet up on a plush leather couch in the corner of Root Studios in Brooklyn, and we chatted about everything from breaking down emotional barriers to bringing normalcy to trans people on screen, that I was treated to Schafer’s true potential for greatness. Watch out, world: Hunter Schafer is here, and she isn’t going anywhere.

You went from fashion girl on the rise last year to Hollywood girl on the rise this year. Can you connect the dots between the two?

I got into modeling, because I wanted to be involved in the fashion industry. That was my goal since middle school. I wanted to take a gap year and make some money before going to the next round of school. So when I kind of figured out that I might be able to model and made the right connections through Instagram and photographers I knew, that became a reality. Modeling for a year taught me a lot. I got very involved in the fashion industry and met a bunch of people who I admired. Acting happened because Euphoria was casting all over the country and they were looking for people who were inexperienced. I was lucky enough to be interested in the idea of acting and not really knowing how to navigate that I was given the right resources from Jennifer Venditti, the casting director, and really great writing and scripts from [creator] Sam Levinson. The whole Euphoria team to work with was amazing.

How did you hear about the open casting call?                                                        

I saw it floating around on Instagram, because a bunch of trans girls in New York were trying to get each other to audition and everyone was going in for it. I heard buzz about it, and then I got a call from my model agents a few days later saying that the casting people had asked for me. So I went in and it kind of snowballed.

Most might dip their toes into the acting pond with their first role, but you plunged head first with Euphoria, a role that puts you in some pretty exposing and vulnerable situations. Did you have any fears or hesitations going into this project?

Absolutely! I got three scenes to audition with, and one of them was the kitchen scene, and one was the motel room scene with Cal, which are two of my most intense scenes. And that was really intimating. I was definitely worried about my ability to put myself in an emotional place like that, because I’ve never explored using my mind in this sort of artistic realm. And I was not sure I could do it. I was definitely anticipating these auditions and was nervous. Also, having not seen the character arc, I was a little worried this character might just be really messy, but I got more of the scripts and began to see where Jules moves throughout the story and that was really exciting to me, to be able to know that she is changing.

Did you work with anyone to prep for the auditions?

Jen Venditti recommended me to an acting coach, and he was really helpful in sort of breaking the ice or like cracking the shell that was naturally around my emotional headspaces and being able to pull from those and immerse myself in them. It was really a mindfuck but also really exciting and some of the most visceral artistic experiences I’ve ever had, which obviously drew me into really wanting this.

I love how spirited Jules’s wardrobe is. It is in direct opposition to the dark things she is experiencing. Did you have any involvement with the wardrobe?

Yeah, Heidi Bivens, the costume designer, was super down to collaborate. And even before I think we started filming the pilot, she texted me and was like, “Send me ideas, and let’s talk about it and have a really solid idea of what we want Jules to look like by the time we start filming.” So we would send each other references; she let me make mood boards, which I love. It was really exciting to be able to have a hands-on experience in molding her look.

What did you, in particular, want to bring to her look?

I mean, I had a relatively clear picture of what she looked like from reading the scripts. One of the first things it said about her is that she is this Sailor Moon–looking chick, and then also I think just because how similar our drives are as people and how I can see myself in her, I was like, okay, I can bring what I was wanting to look like at 17 years old to her. So it was that and sort of the idealism of having access to clothes that Heidi does that I might not be able to in the actual setting, which was fun.

What is your favorite Jules look?

It hasn’t had its moment yet. It’s near the end, and it’s poppin’.

You mentioned in another interview that Jules is a combination of you and creator Sam Levinson. What was important to you to get right or include in telling Jules’s story or that of a trans person?

I think I wanted to bring a relatability as far as portraying a trans person with a sense of normalcy. And despite Jules sticking out like a sore thumb at her school and having a sort of out-there personality and presence, I think for her to be relatable to everybody was important. I think cis people should be able to see themselves in a trans person on screen—that should be something. Obviously, I place more value in trans people seeing themselves on screen, but I wanted her to be relatable to some extent and then also to honor Sam’s experiences that he was bringing to Jules specifically, while bringing my own trans experience to that. He has experiences with gender nonconformity and how that affected his high school experience. And it has been interesting to watch it become sort of an “us” soup.

What do you think parents will take away from the show?

We get asked what we want people to take away from it a lot, and it’s hard to answer that because I don’t think we are trying to teach a lesson here. I don’t think you should be looking up to any of these characters or following their example, because they are all messy and all a little broken. Our slogan is Feel Something, and I think that we made a piece of art that is eight episodes long, and more than anything else, we want viewers to feel it and let it hit them.

Now that you have your first acting gig out of the way, what’s next? Do you want to keep doing this?

I’m fascinated with acting now. In retrospect, I was only beginning to chip off the tip of the iceberg with how far I can go or what I was exploring inside of me that I hadn’t touched in a while as far as emotional headspaces. And I really want to keep going and keep pushing and see what can happen. I hope, I really hope, we get a season two because I love this story so much, and I love these characters, and I want to keep watching them grow. But I’d also love to explore a character who is less parallel to who I am and maybe something where I would have to transform myself more. To play a cisgender person would be interesting or someone older or a mythical creature. I’m down; I just want to keep going.

What about modeling and fashion?

I mean, I still love fashion, and I definitely would like to keep interacting with that world. As far as doing all four fashion weeks and going to every casting that I can, maybe not that again. But I think it’s kind of exciting to be able to interact with it in a way that isn’t relying on necessity or money and more because I love it, which goes back to the roots of I why I got into it in the first place.

Let’s talk about working with stylist Petra Flannery. How did the relationship come about?

My publicist just called me one day and was really excited about this new opportunity because she had apparently reached out. She sent me her information, and I took a look at her work, and it was really beautiful and exciting, and so I wanted to give it a shot. We’ve only worked together on a few looks now, but I’m excited to see where it keeps going and what we can make in the future.

This being your first acting project, was there a specific fashion plan in mind?

Not necessarily. I know for myself, I have a very distinct style, and I know what I like, and I know what I don’t like. But it has been a process of learning how to cater to the different events that happen with Hollywood and how you might want to dress for red carpet and what things photograph well. There’s definitely more strategy involved. It’s a challenge; it’s fun.

How would you describe your off-duty style?

I don’t really go out in LA, but when I have I usually keep it pretty dressed down. I’ve gone clubbing in an oversized t-shirt and my Dr. Martens and little tiny shorts and that’s felt good for the night.

So you are pretty casual?

Definitely more casual than when I lived in New York, just because I went out more there and the functions are a little more extravagant, especially in the LGTBQ community. I think the LA energy kind of rubbed off on me and now I don’t care as much.

You’ve had the opportunity to work with some notable designers, walking in shows and in editorials. Who in the fashion space do you think is doing really cool and exciting things right now? 

I think some of the newer designers, like Luar, Vaquera, and No Sesso. I really love Lou Dallas. [Designers] who are taking a more DIY approach or a less conventional beauty approach and have diverse casting with diverse bodies are really exciting, because I think that’s where we are headed and what I’m excited to see on a runway.

You yourself have created some pretty incredible, thought-provoking designs. Are you still making these kinds of pieces?

When I moved to LA to film Euphioria I took all my creative energy and poured it into that, and since we only wrapped a few weeks ago I’m still coming out of that. I’m looking forward to channeling that creative vibration somewhere else. So yeah, I would like to get back into making garments and stuff. When I commit to something, I’m putting everything in it.

Okay before you go, what’s the plan for summer?

I’m taking it easy. Barbie [Ferreira] and I might try and take a vacation, but we still need to plan it. But mostly just coming down from this wild ass high that was filming Euphoria and learning how to be in just one reality again is my goal.

Hunter Schafer, the trans model who broke barriers on the runway and as an ACLU plaintiff, has quickly become the scene-stealer of HBO’s “Euphoria,” her first acting job.

Hunter Schafer has recently come to the realization that she’s a New York person. Despite having lived in Manhattan for only a year, it’s taken just a short four-day trip to remind Schafer of all the city’s magic — and flood her with memories from her time rising in the modeling world, when she was a recent transplant from North Carolina with dreams of attending fashion school.

The New York dream will have to stay on hold for a bit, though — Hollywood has caught up with Schafer, and as the breakout star of HBO’s controversial, sexy new show “Euphoria,” Schafer might be calling L.A. home for the near future.

She first ventured to New York while touring colleges, stopping by Elite Models at the suggestion of a local photographer from her native Raleigh.

“And they wanted to sign me!” she says. “I was like ‘OK, that’s my ticket to New York. That’s going to pay my rent and I am going to make it work and figure it out.”

She spent the next year modeling full-time, doing a full circuit in Europe and walking for brands like Marc Jacobs and Miu Miu. She also interned with Vaquera before modeling took over full-time.

“My plan was to model and pay the rent and then intern with designers and work on the other side of the industry however I could,” she recalls, “but then it just got to be too much, especially with casting, fashion week and also working for a fashion designer.”

She was gearing up to study fashion design at Central Saint Martins in London when her agents at Elite called to say HBO was interested in her for the role of Jules in “Euphoria,” which stars Zendaya alongside a who’s-who of rising Hollywood stars, from Sydney Sweeney and Maude Apatow to Alexa Demie and Algee Smith.

While Zendaya is the big name on the project — and billed as the frontrunner — audiences have quickly identified Schafer as the reason to keep coming back each week (the season’s fifth episode premieres on Sunday). Jules is a young transgender woman who has recently moved to town with a complex past and a desire to fit in; she and Zendaya’s Rue immediately become friends, and navigate their respective chaos together.

Like Jules, Schafer transitioned in high school, and says she was interested in the role — which is her first acting job — based on the similarities they share.

“I just relate to her deeply, as far as being trans in high school and what that does to you and how it affects the way you navigate life and romance and sex,” Schafer explains. “The more time I spent with her the more complicated she got, which is really exciting. By the end of the season it was like I would just go there and I wouldn’t even have to substitute emotions anymore, because hers felt that real for me.”

Schafer, who is taking a beat before auditioning for new projects — though “Euphoria” was just confirmed yesterday for a second season — says her experiences on the runway helped her to be comfortable in front of the camera when it came to filming — and it also helped steel her for Hollywood.

“That year of modeling, I grew up a lot — I was alone in New York and just grinding and making it work, and I feel it kind of prepared me for the responsibilities of being an actor alone in L.A. and taking care of yourself,” she says. “Which I am still working on.”

Being a trans woman portraying a trans woman on a major platform such as HBO comes with responsibilities, which Schafer takes to heart.

“There is always the thing of ‘am I going to properly represent my community in this role?’” she says. “And there was also the thing of young people who are watching the show can look up to Jules and want to be like her and that’s a really scary thing [because of the show’s extreme nature], but just getting messages from other trans people or people relating to her shooting her estrogen before she goes out for a night with a man — people found that relatable, which is good.”

In 2016, Schafer was a plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit against her home state of North Carolina’s House Bill 2 regarding bathrooms — but she doesn’t see her role in “Euphoria” as a kind of activism.

“I think the term activism has been sort of watered down,” she says. “Because when I think of an activist I think of a community organizer who’s doing that every day of their lives and working with the community, and for this job I have been inserted in a very cisgender, very white, very straight world that is Hollywood, and I don’t know how much that does for the community. I don’t think it is activism.”

That said, she does point out certain acting choices she made to bring a level of authenticity to Jules.

“It felt important for me and felt exciting, as far as that imagery on the TV screen, whether it’s a young trans girl who’s not tucked and has her bulge out and seeing that on TV and what that could do,” she says. “Or a trans girl being in a queer relationship — I don’t really think I have ever seen that imagery on TV either. But I still don’t think that’s activism. I think that’s just you wanted to see yourself represented on TV.”

It’s hard to upstage Zendaya, the Disney Channel star who soared through “The Greatest Showman” and “Spider- Man: Homecoming” into the Hollywood stratosphere. But in HBO’s “Euphoria,” Hunter Schafer has done just that, in what is her debut acting role.

Schafer plays Jules, the new kid in town — a trans girl with a dreamy Sailor Moon vibe and a self-destructive yearning for affection — who becomes best friends with Zendaya’s addictiontormented Rue at their sex-and-drugsdeluged high school.

Her performance as a sensitive, stabilizing force amid the insanity has captivated viewers and critics alike, who’ve anointed her the breakout star of the series.

Shafer was modeling in New York, with plans to study fashion design at Central Saint Martins in London, when her agency informed her that she’d been asked to audition for “Euphoria.” “I gave it a shot just because I had been mildly interested in acting, but it wasn’t something that I thought I would be pursuing seriously in any way, shape or form,” she said. “Then I just kept going back in and getting more of the scripts and eventually started to fall in love with my character.”

After landing the role, she spent hours with Sam Levinson, the show’s creator, filling out Jules’s transition experience.

“We were just telling each other stories and bringing forward timelines that we thought could make sense for Jules and then conceptualizing and sharing ideas, and that was the beginning,” she said. “I feel like Jules was being built until the last day we wrapped.” “Euphoria” may be her first onscreen gig, but Schafer is no stranger to attention.

Raised in Raleigh, N.C., she was a plaintiff in the American Civil Liberties Union’s 2016 lawsuit against North Carolina House Bill 2 that required people to use the restroom for the gender they were assigned at birth.

She wrote about the experience of navigating bathrooms in her public high school.

In a phone interview as she shuttled between a photo shoot and her New York hotel room, the sunny Schafer, 20, talked about her newfound fame, representation in entertainment and why she doesn’t want to be called an activist.

These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

How does it feel to be having this breakout moment?
It’s pretty surreal.

I feel so lucky to have “Euphoria” as a first experience with taking on a character and exploring acting, and in having this group of people as well.

You’ve said that your life was similar to Jules’s.
I transitioned in early high school, and her transition might have been a little bit earlier than mine. But transitioning while you’re in public school is a pretty intense experience, so I knew I could bring that to her. And then Jules’s drive and motivation for the way she acts from the start, as far as a desire to be treated “like a woman.” And I’m saying that with quote fingers because that’s a loaded term. But I think one of Jules’s main battles is her desire for romance and normalcy and love, which I think she’s kind of locked down a routine as far as getting some form of that. But of course it’s not healthy, and I can relate to that point in my life. I didn’t act out on it, but I certainly desired to be treated a certain way in order to affirm my femininity.

What’s it like working with Zendaya?
She’s amazing. Z was my main scene partner for most of this season and I just feel so lucky to come out of this experience with a new best friend.

The Parents Television Council issued a warning about “Euphoria” before its premiere, calling it a “grossly irresponsible programming decision” for its graphic content. Does the show ring true to your memory of high school experience?
I can’t say I lived the way these characters do, just because my default is to be internal and stay home. Making artwork was my saving grace. I didn’t really go out to parties very often the way these characters do. Oftentimes their actions make their experiences kind of messy where there’s no parents involved. But it’s interesting because my siblings have recently seen it, and I think they have a different experience of high school than I did.

They found it extremely true or relatable. It just sort of clocked high school in a way that they hadn’t seen before, which I was really excited to hear.

You’ve been what most people would consider activist, and yet you say you don’t like that word. Why?
When I think of an activist, I think of a community organizer who is working every day and directly with community members, and making it a job to take care of and speak up for a community in some way. So as an actor and an artist whose primary focus is making artwork or world-building, I don’t think I fall into that category. There might have been a point in my career where, because people have been telling me I’m an activist, I took on that label. But in retrospect, I don’t think that’s what I am — or what I’ve been — just because I’m vocal about my identity.

How do you feel about trans representation and opportunities in Hollywood?
I think it’s always preferable that a trans person plays a trans person — one, because there’s enough cisgender actors in Hollywood, and two, because trans people can bring levels of experience to the trans experience that they might be portraying.

Are you auditioning for other parts, and do you have a dream role?
I’m still kind of winding down from “Euphoria.” It’s taking a bit of time, just because we were doing this for eight months and I’m very immersed in that world, and I’m still in the process of letting it go. But I think I will start auditioning soon, and I’m really interested to explore what other characters I could inhabit.

On getting cast from Instagram, cuddling with Zendaya, and bringing a different trans narrative to the screen.

Hunter Schafer was walking into an unmarked building in downtown Manhattan to do an interview when she was caught off guard by a ton of flashing lights. She was wearing a full lewk—a pink-and-lime-green striped skirt with a matching cutout top and green saddle shoes with a heel. But it was a hot July day, and she was totally unprepared for the person with a camera who called out her name and snapped a bunch of photos. That’s when she knew it was official. She had just been paparazzi’ed for the first time.

“It was so insane,” she says a day later. “They knew where we were going. I don’t know how, but they did. It was one of those moments that’s very fast, when you realize, Oh shit, that’s never happened before.”

Hunter has experience in the spotlight: She spent a year as a runway model for designers like Marc Jacobs, Helmut Lang, and Miu Miu, and when she was still in high school, she was one of the plaintiffs in the ACLU’s case against the North Carolina Bathroom Bill, which led to her writing viral op-eds and landing magazine covers. But none of that compares to the attention the 20-year-old actor is experiencing now because of HBO’s breakout phenomenon Euphoria. Ever heard of it?

The HBO series, led by Zendaya and featuring Jacob Elordi, shows teens posing as cam girls, snorting fentanyl, vaping too many Juuls to count, rocking hipless pants, and wearing dreamy neon eye makeup that has basically started a movement. It’s the show where Zendaya tells the world “nudes are the currency of love” and that counts Leonardo DiCaprio as a fan—and the Parents Television Council as a hater (the true sign of legit-ness). The series made hilarious headlines earlier this summer for showing 30 penises in one scene.

Despite all the charisma onscreen, Hunter is the show’s breakout star. She plays Jules, the sweet new girl in town who just wants to find love, make friends, and have so much freaking fun. Oh yeah, and she’s trans. But unlike most other trans narratives onscreen, Jules’s transness doesn’t define her—nor is it the most interesting thing about her. In fact, Jules never even says she’s trans until episode 3. Until then, there are quick visual cues that hint at her identity but don’t overpower her story line.

“It’s not that a transition story doesn’t make a character whole,” Hunter says while sitting in the backseat of a black SUV. We’re heading to her hotel after seven hours of photo shoots and interviews. It’s a moment of rare downtime, and she leans against the window, folding her arms around her waist. She is wearing a sleeveless lace turtleneck with bold orange, blue, and black stripes, has barely any makeup on, and has fastened her long platinum hair into a messy topknot. “It’s like, in my life, my transness may affect the way I move throughout the world, but I’m dealing with a whole lot of other shit too.”

You know, like dating apps (“the longest I’ve lasted on one is about six hours”), what to do when she’s not filming a hit TV show (“I want to get a sewing machine as soon as I get home”), and her recent move from New York to Los Angeles to focus on acting full-time (“I haven’t really experienced neutral life in L.A. yet”). And then there’s the whole I’m actually famous thing too. Although that doesn’t seem real yet. “I don’t feel like I’m changing as much as the other elements of my life are changing,” she says. “I want to be very purposeful and not let that change me, but it’s a scary thought.”

Acting was never part of Hunter’s plan. Born in Trenton, New Jersey, Hunter and her family moved from the Northeast to Arizona and then settled in Raleigh, North Carolina, when she was still a kid. She was always obsessed with drawing, sketching fashion designs, and making all kinds of visual art. “I was not as cool,” she says when asked how it compared to Jules’s high school experience. “But I snuck out one time to go to a college party.”

Instead, she spent most of her teenage years with a sketchbook and posting her work on social media, which eventually drew interest from Tavi Gevinson, founder of the now-defunct website Rookie. “I tagged Tavi in a happy birthday post because Rookie meant that much to me,” Hunter says. “She found my Instagram where I had been posting my work and invited me to start contributing.” Soon, her line drawings, tender comics, and style shoots about high school graduation, friendship, and love began appearing on the website. They were earnest and sweet, peppered with themes of identity and connection.

In 2016, when she was just 17, Hunter also became the youngest plaintiff in the lawsuit against North Carolina’s House Bill 2, which said people had to use the public bathrooms that corresponded to the sex on their birth certificates, not their gender identity. “I just wanted to be an example of who the bill was affecting so the lawmakers could see that,” she says now.

But the experience also gave her national attention, and in her final year of high school, a North Carolina photographer suggested she reach out to Elite Models. After a trip to Manhattan, she signed with them. “By the time I graduated, I had this nice little check and I was like, okay, this is my ticket to New York,” she says. “Since middle school, all I wanted was to be in a city, particularly New York. I just wanted to be immersed in [the fashion] industry that I looked up to for so long.” That same year, she started walking in shows for top-tier designers at New York Fashion Week and London Fashion Week and booking shoots for ASOS’s magazine and Vogue Japan. Casual, right?

The idea was never to jump into acting. Instead, she had plans to go to Central Saint Martins fashion design school in London. But while HBO was casting Euphoria, it ditched the TV world’s traditional way of doing things and went more rogue, choosing to pluck unknowns from the street and blast out ads on Instagram. That’s how Hunter first heard about the gig. Her friends passed around a post looking for femme trans actors, but Hunter didn’t think to audition until her agency suggested it. Once she did, casting directors said she “won it in a beautiful way.”

After she was offered the role, she spent about five hours with creator Sam Levinson at a coffee shop, spilling her guts. She says she told him basically everything about her life so he could understand what it was like to grow up trans and how Hunter’s experience could inform Jules as a character. “Sam really ripped himself open to write this story,” she says. “Seeing his commitment made it easier to put my own love and full self into what I was doing.” Although Sam had an idea of who Jules was, viewers can spot shades of Hunter throughout the show, inspired by her real life.

“Jules’s transition toward queerness is definitely something that I felt like I could bring to this story,” says Hunter. “I wasn’t acting like Jules, but some of the frameworks in my head are around being a femme person and how I relate to the world that way. But they weren’t necessarily healthy or accurate for who I am as a person or who I want to be around. I can relate to Jules deconstructing and starting to do what feels better.”

She hints at that idea in her art too. Back in January 2018, she posted a sketch to Instagram where she wrote, “My gender was so influenced by a need to be used by men.”

Which, yep, sounds like Jules. In the most recent episode, she talks this out even more explicitly. When a new friend asks her about her relationship to men, Jules responds, “In my head, it’s like, if I can conquer men, I can conquer femininity.”

But TBH, Jules really just wants “a cute-ass relationship,” says Hunter. And true stans aren’t into her dangerous trysts with rando men in town (or that whole Tyler catfishing story line that we don’t even need to go into, but damn you, Jacob Elordi!). No, they ship Rules, aka Jules and her best-friend-turned-romantic-interest Rue, the drug-addicted, potentially bipolar star of the show played by Zendaya.

Although their relationship throughout season 1 has been full of glittery highs and depressing lows, it’s in these scenes that Hunter shows her low-key incredible range as an actor. With a slow, coy smile, long platinum hair, and limbs that stretch into eternity, Hunter commands your attention onscreen. Her face moves in tiny motions. A lip tremble or a narrowed eye can make you truly feel all the feels. Her warbling voice, which is the same onscreen and off, feels so genuine and authentic that you almost forget Hunter isn’t Jules IRL. While watching, you have to remind yourself this is her first acting gig. You’d never know by how she and Zendaya, a bona fide movie star who’s been on camera basically all her life, play off each other.

“We’d spend three hours just cuddling in bed together as our characters,” Hunter says about acting with Z (yes, that’s what she calls her). “There are a lot of scenes where Rue and Jules are just in bed talking and holding each other. Shooting that broke down a lot of the physical intimacy barriers.”

But let’s be real, there were basically no walls left between anyone by the end of filming. It was an intense experience that went on for eight months. “At some point, it felt like we were never going to finish,” she says.

Hunter only met the rest of the cast when they began production in Los Angeles. While filming the pilot, the studio put them up at the Standard Hotel in West Hollywood. That’s where they all got to know each other. (Your visions of room service and slumber parties are correct.) “We would just go swimming and hang out,” she says. “It was also during Pride, so the Standard was just absolutely nuts. We watched from the sidelines, but to witness that together was wild.”

Once they started filming, the whole group grew to have a “familial vibe,” she says, and spent their time between takes riding bikes around the Sony lot or sunbathing on a concrete slab between their trailers. “Every once in a while, we’d manage to steal a golf cart and take that for a ride,” says Hunter.

Her favorite day happened at the end of the shoot at the wrap party, during which Drake reportedly handed out wads of cash to the cast. “It was such a surreal moment, and a lot of people hadn’t been partying for so long because we did so many night shoots,” she says. “People couldn’t really go out, so I think everyone just went really hard that night, as they should.” How hard, you ask? She’ll never tell.

Now that Euphoria is out in the world (the finale airs this Sunday), Hunter says the cast has a near-constant group text where they keep in touch and talk about basically everything. Today’s topic? Leo professing his love for the show. “That’s been the past 24 hours for us.”

Next, though, Hunter will head back to Los Angeles, prep for Euphoria’s second season, and figure out what other kinds of acting roles she can get into. “I’d love to try playing a character who is a stark difference from me,” she says. “Fantasy would be fun.”

But as we weave through downtown Manhattan in Hunter’s ride, she turns to the window and shrieks. “Ah, look!” I follow her gaze as she presses her hand to the window. There goes a New York City public bus with a Euphoria poster plastered on its side. Hunter turns back to me with a full, wide smile. “Oh, that’s so cool.”

The first-time actress discusses her hit show, the power of art that makes us uncomfortable, and what’s next.

The 20-year-old breakout star on grappling with Instagram, trans visibility, and newfound fame.

This summer, millions of people tuned in to Euphoria to watch Zendaya depart from her squeaky-clean Disney Channel image once and for all. She plays Rue Bennett, a 17-year-old drug addict fresh off an unsuccessful stint in rehab, on the Drake-produced HBO drama series. But it was 20-year-old model Hunter Schafer, making her acting debut, who stole the show. Schafer plays Jules, a trans girl who has just moved to town from the big city and quickly befriends Rue while also inadvertently winning her romantic interest.

As one of just a few visible trans actresses in Hollywood, Schafer gives a performance that has been hailed as revolutionary for the way it casually presents her gender identity. Jules isn’t a token character. Notably, her plotline is largely devoid of any pat explanations about her transition (though there is one frightening flashback to Jules’s childhood stint in a psych ward), and Schafer plays her with captivating vulnerability.

“I certainly wasn’t living my life the same way Jules was in high school,” the actress says with a laugh, presumably at the thought of sleeping with a parade of married men in sketchy motels—something Jules does with alarming regularity. “The environment I was in at her age differs, but the headspace felt accurate. I could definitely relate to her motives.”

To say Schafer grew up in a different environment is an understatement: She was raised by conservative parents (her dad is a pastor) in the South. But as far back as middle school, she knew she wasn’t long for small-town life. Schafer’s dreams of fleeing her native North Carolina to pursue a career in fashion began in middle school, and by the end of high school she was watching each season’s runway shows. Her future started to take shape when, on a college tour of New York City at 18, Schafer met with an Elite Model Management agent she’d met on Instagram. A self-professed late bloomer, she credits a growth spurt as one of the reasons she decided to go on the meeting. She was signed on the spot.

In a way, filming Euphoria was like a year of college.

By Schafer’s third season of modeling, her career had seemingly taken off: She was walking in Paris and Milan for the likes of Dior, Miu Miu, and Helmut Lang and appearing in fashion magazines all over the world. While the fashion industry embraced Schafer for her ethereal yet edgy look and cool-kid versatility, she refers to her ascent as a “slow burn.”

For the most part, she saw her foray into modeling as a postponement of her real-life plan. She’d deferred her acceptance to the renowned Central Saint Martins in London—where she hopes to study fashion design eventually—in order to save for tuition.

As a model, she says, “I worked with some of my favorite designers on the planet, but I never really made a lot of money. I was living paycheck to paycheck.” But just as she contemplated leaving modeling and heading to school, she saw another opportunity: auditioning for a then–unnamed HBO series. “I had seen the casting call floating around on Instagram,” she recalls. “A few days later, I got a call from my agent saying that the network requested I come in [and read] for it. So I decided to give it a shot.” She continues, “I didn’t know what I was doing. I had never been on an audition before.” Nonetheless, she dove headfirst into the material, and with every callback (there were “at least five”), she grew more attached to the role.

Even though her college plans were derailed once again, Schafer doesn’t feel as though she’s missing out on an education. “In a way, filming Euphoria was like a year of college, learning this new craft and getting to build on it every day,” she says.

In the wake of Euphoria’s June debut, there’s been a flurry of sensational reviews, most of them either celebrating the breakout cast’s portrayal of such complicated and wildly attractive high schoolers or criticizing the show’s explicit content. (There’s a fair amount of nudity, hard-core drug use, and explicit sex, even in the first episode.) Whether viewers were moved by each episode’s brutal honesty or overwhelmed by the barrage of gaspworthy scenes, Euphoria had everyone talking.

Since then, Schafer has been trying to get used to the spotlight. “It’s really wild to be at this new level of visibility,” she says. “It’s something I’m still adjusting to and trying to understand.” For example, she’s made a conscious effort to keep what she calls “a pretty solid distance” from social media. “I’ve received quite a few messages from trans people who are excited about the representation on the show,” she says.

Because of the palpable realness Schafer brings to her character, members of the trans community have been quick to crown her a role model. “I think that [term] has a lot of weight to it,” she says, admitting she’s unsure she can live up to their expectations. But ready or not, it’s happening. “I don’t really know if it’s up to me anymore.”

Talking skincare, Rick Owens and head harnesses with the ‘Euphoria’ star.

By some stretch, the best looking programme on TV right now is HBO’s Euphoria. A kaleidoscope of enviable bone structure, inventive styling, and skin so glowing it made me actively annoyed when I initially tuned in, Euphoria has been cited for its sumptuous photography, and zeitgeist-defining hair and make-up. It’s also been celebrated, however, for the performances of its young cast, in particular those of two of its central actors – Zendaya, who plays against type as the smart-arse narrator Rue, and breakout star Hunter Schafer, who plays Rue’s best friend and love interest Jules, in her first acting role.

From Schafer’s scenes even in Euphoria’s very first episode, she is engaging and arresting, especially in a demanding moment playing against Jacob Elordi’s unhinged athlete Nate. Schafer wears Jules’ sci-fi Sailor Moon looks like both a second skin and a suit of armour, and – along with Alexa Demie who plays Maddy, and make-up artist Kirstin Sage Coleman – has inspired swathes of people online to try out the show’s style, which I’m going to go ahead and term “Instagram Psychedelic.”

Elsewhere, Hunter is a trans rights activist, and also a model who has appeared in campaigns for brands like Kenzo, Coach, Miu Miu, Marc Jacobs, and many more of the world’s most discerning fashion houses. With all that demand stacking up, and a confirmed second season of Euphoria on the way (the last instalment of Season 1 airs in the UK on Sky Atlantic on Tuesday the 24th of September), Hunter Schafer is almost certainly entering her imperial phase. But how does that feel? And what’s it like to be the person wearing those iconic Euphoria make-up looks? And – sorry – but do you have to cut some sort of deal with the underworld for your skin to look like that? I recently met up with Hunter in London to find out.

VICE: Hey Hunter! What’s your morning skin routine?
Hunter Schafer: I kind of only have one skincare routine. I just shower and I put on moisturiser after I shower!

It’s so in depth, I can’t believe it.
And that’s it.

What’s your nightly skin routine?
Same sort of thing. I think it depends on if I have make-up on from work – I take that shower, get it off, throw the moisturiser on. Same deal.

What’s the weirdest skin product you’ve ever used, or procedure you’ve ever had done?
Not that I’ve been conscious of using, but maybe one has fallen into my hands!

What’s the most expensive skin product or procedure you’ve ever used?
I don’t know if it’s pricey but my last hotel had really … I really liked the smell of the moisturiser. So I took it and that’s what I’ve been using. And maybe it is expensive. It could be – it’s Italian.

What does it smell like?
I can’t put a finger on it. The thing that’s coming to mind is, like, pears?

Yum. I love stuff like that because you smell yourself and you’re like, “What a delicious treat,” and then you’re like, “It’s me!”
Exactly. I’m the treat.

What was your most inconvenient zit?
Thankfully, I don’t deal with a lot of acne but every now and then, we get a little friend that pops up. I remember a few times during filming Euphoria, I got one right in the middle of my forehead. And also, I’m just really pale, so any kind of inconsistency is just gonna pop out. And we were shooting something that connected to a scene that we already shot a while ago, before I had the zit, so it was a continuity issue too.

But! The show is about teens, and it’s been praised for its relatability, so a zit––
Popping up in a matter of minutes!

What’s the best budget skin care product you use?
I mean, dentist’s chapstick! Which you know, you can just grab a handful of, have been lifesavers.

When do you let your skincare slide?
Yeah, I won’t beat myself up for falling asleep in my make-up if that’s where the night takes me. You know, if I have make-up on – I don’t usually wear it! But if I have it on and then I go out? Sure! There’s a chance I could fall asleep in it – fine!

It’s interesting that you’re not so into make-up, because obviously in _Euphoria_**, one of the big parts of the character is make-up. Was that a bit alien to you when you started the role?** No, because I used to be more concerned with make-up, and also I think if I did wear make-up, it would not be too far from what Jules does. Because yeah, I like that Jules is interested in shapes and colour and moods, rather than just trying to be, like, pretty. And that’s how I think I would want to approach it as well.

What’s the most outlandish piece of clothing you’ve ever bought?
I bought a head harness. It goes around, over your nose, and then around to the sides of your mouth. I think I wore it for a photoshoot that I creative directed back in New York, but that’s the only context I’ve worn it in. That’s not that outlandish! I don’t wanna make sex-centric stuff seem like it’s ‘out there,’ but yeah, I don’t see a lot of people wearing head harnesses out and about!

What’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever worn?
Usually, if I’m on a photoshoot and they have borrowed jewellery that’s really nice, there will literally just be six massive dudes in suits there to protect the jewellery. And I’ve been on a few shoots where that’s been the case. So I imagine that!

I bet that makes it kind of an intimidating vibe
Yeah, just a little! It’s not uncommon to lose an earring on set but you cannot – they’re not gonna let you off set.

What’s been your most High Fashun experience?
Walking Rick Owens will always have a warm place in my heart, because all of his clothes exist in this space between fashion and art that’s really yummy.

What did they have you wear?
I was in a coat with bat wings that I tried to accentuate with my walk so that they bounced when I walked. And then I had a giant crown on, and there was a burning witch totem in the middle of the runway, so it felt like a seance. It was wonderful.

What’s your favourite shoot you’ve done?
Probably my Dazed cover with Mario Sorrenti and Rick Owens clothes – as you can tell I’m a Rick Owens fan.

Did you get much say in the art direction of that?
No, I think I knew coming into it that it was a Rick Owens special, and I was really happy about that. And then also my PAPER mag digital covers were a lot of fun, and I loved the way they turned out as far as shooting vines out of my hands, I wish that was a thing I could really do.

I feel like PAPER always has really interesting concepts for those digital covers.
They go off.

Have you ever done a shoot with a funny or weird concept?
Oh yeah! The Kenzo campaign I did not too long ago actually. For the video portion, it was very improv-y – it was supposed to be chaotic, like that’s the energy of the video. But they were like screaming at us like, “OK, you’re on a boat! And you’re in the middle of the sea! And you’re protecting this box of lemons! And you can NOT let the lemons fall! And if the lemons fall, it’s the end of the fucking world!” So we’re on this make-believe boat like rocking and screaming and there’s like wind. It’s only a few flashes of it in the actual campaign but it was kind of exhilarating.

And there was another one where we were doing a make-believe aeroplane, and they asked one of the models to act like she can’t find her mom, and she’s like a six-year-old, and then the plane starts crashing. It was so intense. And she was like, screaming in these rows of chairs – and then I come in and I’m a doctor. Someone starts having a heart attack. I don’t know. It was wild.

What do you wear when you’re by yourself chilling?
Like, a hoodie and underwear.

What’s been your biggest fashion disaster?
I mean back when I was a lot younger, yeah. I used to wear really tight tops, and then really baggy basketball shorts together, because I liked the silhouette. In retrospect, I think I was trying to mimic a dress, but it looked awful. But I think it’s cute that I was trying to mimic that shape!

What’s your holy grail Only Celebs Know make-up tip?
Maybe they’ve used special tricks on me, but I wouldn’t know when they did, and when to ask! I wish I could tell you one!

What’s the most bizarre thing a make-up artist has done to you?
I think maybe – it wasn’t that wild – but when I walked Matty Bovan, we had giant blue squares on our faces, like smack dab in the middle of our faces. That was fun, and something I had never had on my face before! I think that’s the one.

And then finally a Euphoria bonus question: Which of Jules’ looks did you like best?
I’m pretty sure the club sequence, and I would say wearing the spikes in the fantasy sequence where we killed Nate is probably the most disorienting just because they reflect light.

From HBO’s ‘Euphoria’ breakouts to a ‘Daily Show’ comic and the new Little Mermaid, meet 25 talents positioned for big- and small-screen stardom.

Get to know these names. Whether they’re leading tentpole films (Shang-Chi’s Simu Liu, Mulan‘s Liu Yifei) or fronting must-see-TV (Pose‘s Indya Moore, Unbelievable‘s Kaitlyn Dever), this batch of 25 rising stars are here to stay. They’re who every producer in town is looking to cast, agent is vying to sign and studio is hoping will carry their next franchise. From recent big-screen breakouts like Once Upon a Time’s Margaret Qualley and The Last Black Man in San Francisco‘s Jonathan Majors to a handful of stars from one of the year’s hottest shows (Euphoria), The Hollywood Reporter anoints the top emerging talent of 2019.

The rising stars of 2020 may be decked out in the sepia-tinged tones and free-spirited fabrics of the 1970s—but they’re ready for the future.

Hunter Schafer

Schafer, 21, has leaped from the catwalk (Miu Miu, Marc Jacobs, Christian Dior) to the small screen, where her sharp-yet-tender performance was a bright point in the suburban dystopia of HBO’s Euphoria. Schafer is hard at work filming the show’s sophomore season (out later this year), and though she hasn’t put modeling on hold, she’s committed to acting. “I definitely want to try a film. I think there are a lot of genres I would love to hit. Like, I really love sci-fi. Period kind of scares the hell out of me, but that also might be a good sign.”

By staying true to who she is, actress and fashion magpie Hunter Schafer has emerged as the most exciting new face on TV

Whoever says overnight success doesn’t exist clearly didn’t watch the first season of Euphoria on HBO last summer. Before the show premiered, we were living in a world without Hunter Schafer. Now the zeitgeist can’t get enough of the gorgeous 21-year-old trans model and actress, who looks as if she’s the androgynous love child of Tilda Swinton and David Bowie.

In the show, Schafer plays Jules Vaughn, a transfeminine high school student who befriends slash has a romance with her classmate Rue Bennett (Zendaya), a 17-year-old addict just out of rehab. Euphoria marked Schafer’s first foray into acting after she responded to a casting call on Instagram. It wasn’t until filming started on the sixth episode or so that the former runway model (she has walked for Miu Miu, Dior, and Marc Jacobs) finally realized she could do it. “I’m comfortable with this,” she recalls thinking. “I know Jules.”

Telling stories that mirror her own journey was certainly part of the allure. “As someone who holds a lot of privilege, I definitely have the trans community on my mind,” Schafer says. “I want to use what I’ve done as a pathway for others.”

As for Euphoria’s graphic nature — one particularly intense episode features a younger version of Jules being checked into a mental institution, a sequence reportedly based on creator Sam Levinson’s childhood — Schafer doesn’t try to sugarcoat it. “Usually I’ll just say it’s a show following a group of high schoolers navigating love, sex, drugs, violence, etc.,” she says. “But I’ve had friends say they can’t watch. It might be triggering for them, and — hell, yeah — I understand. It’s not for everyone.”

Among those who were perhaps nervous to watch the finished product was her family back in Raleigh, N.C. While Schafer’s three younger siblings all loved it, the racy subject matter could certainly rattle the most liberally inclined parent. Fortunately, her mother and her father, a longtime pastor at Hudson Memorial Presbyterian Church, were equally supportive. “They watched it, and they’ve been really great,” Schafer says. “Though I don’t think it’s the kind of thing they’ll watch again.” Schafer admits she likely won’t be, either. It was hard enough to see herself onscreen once.

But that won’t stop her from stepping into Jules’s stylishly scuffed combat boots again when Euphoria returns for a second season this year. Though Schafer hasn’t seen any of the new scripts, she is in constant communication with Levinson, usually to send him music that she thinks would be good for the show. “Music is actually a very private thing for me,” Schafer says. Drawing and painting are also modes of meditation. They help alleviate her anxiety, something she has been working through since adolescence.

“Anxiety is a hard thing to describe,” she admits. “It’s a never-ending journey, figuring out how to reconcile some of that. Making art is definitely what I’ve used to find peace. It allows me to take something that I’m holding on to and release it in some way.”

Given her modeling background, Schafer has an artistic eye that extends to fashion as well, although she saves her most-transformative looks for red-carpet outings. One night it could be a pearl-encrusted skirt suit from Christopher Kane (paired with pearl face jewelry, naturally), another a black fringe halter dress by Loewe or a bold graphic cocktail dress by Mugler.

“I like the cross section of art and fashion,” Schafer says, noting that she favors outré labels such as Comme des Garçons, Rick Owens, and Hood by Air. “You have more room to breathe when you’re not thinking about who you’re marketing to or how many pieces you’re going to sell. The designer sees a void in the world of fashion that they want to fill. They’re making these pieces because they are pushing themselves to do it. It’s much closer to art and more exciting than something that’s based off a trend forecast.”

One bonus of Euphoria’s doing so well is that Schafer is “actually able to afford things now.” Though the local Goodwill is a personal favorite. “The ones in North Carolina are better than the ones here in Los Angeles,” she says. “Not as picked through. I’ve found Comme des Garçons there for $5.”

Staying low-key off-screen also helps her to navigate her newfound fame — whenever she’s dressed-up, she gets recognized. (Jules Vaughn was a popular Halloween costume last year.) And forget about shopping at any Gen Z locale. Since the release of Euphoria, Schafer has had to rethink where she gets her undergarments after trips to Urban Outfitters resulted in her being mobbed by fans.

“It’s kind of crazy,” she says, shaking her head and letting out a quick laugh. “But if you have any ideas of where I should get underwear and socks, let me know!”

AT 21, HUNTER SCHAFER IS ALREADY AN ACTIVIST, MODEL, ARTIST, AND BREAKOUT STAR OF EUPHORIA. AND SHE’S JUST GETTING STARTED.

Hunter Schafer recently saw something magnificent.

But first: She bought a truck.

At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Schafer found herself alone in Los Angeles. As one of the lucky Americans who could afford the pause in work, she spent those initial weeks in excited, nocturnal bursts of creative writing. (She took Shonda Rhimes’s TV-writing course on Masterclass.) “But I couldn’t handle the severe sense of isolation — being alone in the apartment and having no mode of transportation,” she says. (“Outside of a skateboard,” she adds, like a cool teen.)

So she bought the truck, and then drove across the nation to her sister’s house in North Carolina. “It was probably the most stable I felt throughout all of quarantine,” Schafer says. “I just had one objective, which [was] stay on the road and follow the map and drive. And it was great.”

She drove through Arizona to see the preschool she attended. She stopped in Memphis to visit the Lorraine Motel, the place where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated that has since been converted into the National Civil Rights Museum. But she was in Texas when, on a road that stretched through open country dotted with windmills, she saw it: a very big, bad cloud. It was a fluffy tempest, as vast as a city, crawling across a sea of grass. It was a cumulonimbus cloud. Schafer is sure of it; a cloud cooked by the hot Texas wind into something magnificent, terrifying, and massive, and capable of sneezing out a devastating tornado at random. This is all an extended metaphor to say that Schafer knows what it is like to drive right into the eye of a storm.

For an audience of millions, Schafer appears in the highly stylized HBO teen bacchanal Euphoria as Jules, a 17-year-old girl who is both the best friend of and object of desire for the show’s protagonist, Rue, played by Zendaya. The rest of the cast is filled out by other superlatively attractive young actors. But even among jewels, Jules is exquisite, and the show is more or less filmed from the perspective of somebody who is slowly falling in love with her.

This seduction is a dual effort for Schafer and the show’s creator, Sam Levinson, whose point of view is so specifically lush that season one of Euphoria reportedly cost about as much to produce as season one of Westworld. “There’s a magic [to Euphoria],” says Schafer, “that I think something like Westworld, which is sci-fi, requires the same amount of attention to detail and persistence, as far as making sure that vision comes across. So we can thank Sam and our wonderful producers for our wildly expensive TV show.”

Euphoria made Schafer enormously famous. Not overnight, but over a series of Sunday nights in the summer of 2019, as season one aired. Her Instagram, which had previously served to document her life as a model in New York City, swelled to over a million followers. Schafer was written about, interviewed, photographed, put on lists. HBO moved her into a West Hollywood apartment with views of HBO’s studios so that she could walk to work. Then, just days before shooting, production on season two of Euphoria was suspended due to the escalating pandemic. But Schafer’s star has continued its skyward climb: A Japanese cosmetics giant, Shiseido — the Japanese cosmetics giant, if we’re speaking honestly — hired Schafer to represent its concept of beauty. (Schafer is Shiseido Makeup’s latest global brand ambassador. Says Schafer of the opportunity, “I was shook.”)

“I think, perhaps, there’s a bit of a projection of Jules onto me, Hunter,” says Schafer. She hypothesizes that this is partly because of their uncanny physical resemblance. “Sometimes I dress like her; sometimes I like to dress like her.” She immediately hoists a leg up, cramming her limbs into the Zoom interface, displaying formfitting head-to-toe black with searing-white, high-top Air Force 1s. “But she’s one part of me.” She reaches for a Teen Titans reference, a Cartoon Network series about kid superheroes from the DC Comics universe: “Raven [the goth empath] has this moment where she goes to her home in the depths of hell and separates into 10 versions of herself, and they’re all a different color of the rainbow. I feel like Jules is one of the 10 or however many parts of me.”

Schafer’s speaking voice is slow, considered, and slightly raspy. It works to give the impression that she is somebody with monk-like reserves of self-knowledge and wisdom beyond her years on Earth, of which there have been 21. “I think I’m different from Jules in where I am with myself,” she says, “and how I love people, and what my concerns are as far as being affirmed, and whatnot.”

There are other differences too. In Euphoria’s first episode, when the evil hunk Nate menaces Jules at a party, she reacts by dramatically escalating the situation, threatening him with a kitchen knife. Then she demonstrates her capacity for unbridled chaos by slicing her arm in front of a Saturday night’s worth of astonished teens. That is not something Hunter Schafer would do, she says.

Though not even roughly equivalent, when Schafer is in an awkward social situation, she reacts in the opposite way: by choosing humility over chaos. “When I was staying with my sister in North Carolina and met her friends that she’s quarantining with, they approached me being like, ‘Damn, you have your life together. You know what you’re doing. You’ve got jobs, whatever.’ And I’m so not that,” she says. “I have no idea what I’m doing — just riding the wave that life is handing me and trying to be okay and keep my shit together. I think whatever presence I have, in the public-figure world, presents itself as something more collected, but I’m messy. I am just trying to figure out how to be a 21-year-old.” Like many other people, she is simply careening through a terrifying, unpredictable, gorgeous world that is filled with hunks and clothes and pandemics and pain and euphoria; but she is doing it in four-wheel drive, and much, much faster.

Schafer’s career trajectory hews close to a narrative popular among America’s most charismatic and youthful percentile: A beautiful teen becomes a successful model becomes a celebrated actor. After a model turns actor, their career threads tend to separate, and from there they cease to stay predictable. Whether Schafer will win an Oscar, start a lifestyle brand, or both is unclear at this time.

Perhaps the main difference between Schafer and others who have walked the path before her is Schafer’s identity as a trans woman, of which there are few models and fewer models-turned-actors. It becomes a popular fixation point in a way that it doesn’t for others — rarely are Cameron Diaz or Amanda Seyfried questioned at length about their pubescent years. For Schafer, this occurs at least once in nearly every interview she does, sometimes sustaining the entire conversation.

“Even right now, I have to filter what I say, because more often than not I’ve found that when I say the T-word, whatever sentence that is becomes a headliner,” she says. “Not only do I think that’s so boring and so predictable, it’s, like, such a fraction [of my life]. It feels sensational. It feels like it’s prone to getting sensationalized. I also understand the need for dialogue on it.”

Schafer shares these thoughts at a particularly traumatic moment for the trans community, days after the murder of yet another trans woman of color — there have been at least 12 this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign — and a week after a children’s book author published what was essentially an anti-trans manifesto, so this interviewer shifts awkwardly in his seat, looking anew at his sheet of questions.

“I just wish it could be normal or a part of an interview that doesn’t change the course of the conversation,” she adds. “You know?”

But identity politics are powerful, and an HBO show provides a massive platform, and, well, it is complicated, isn’t it? It is daunting for Schafer to have to speak on behalf of an entire community, especially when she represents its smallest, whitest, most modelesque faction. To support Black Lives Matter, she has posted sparsely on Instagram, drawing attention to organizations that benefit Black trans persons and encouraging her following to donate to them (including For the Gworls, the Black Trans Lives Matter Youth Fund, and the Marsha P. Johnson Institute).

“I feel like with a lot of white celebrities in particular who do benefit from their whiteness and white supremacy, and by proxy the oppression of Black people, they need to be speaking in these moments or to be active in some way,” Schafer says. “Part of that is using your platform or giving it to someone else, but I also think our voices aren’t necessary in this. There’s also a way to quietly do your part, and a lot of that has to do with allocating funds to the right people. It’s going to be [about] finding some direct action with your body and interrogating your whiteness. None of that is Instagrammable.”

She pauses. “I don’t know,” she says finally, a phrase she often uses to punctuate her thoughts, as if to say, I am thinking about all of this all of the time, and of course I haven’t figured it out, but there, that was my humble attempt.

Schafer has spent much of her life being aware of the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement, which was playing out on the political stage during her adolescence. She first earned the activist title when she appeared as a plaintiff in the ACLU’s case to overturn North Carolina’s HB2 “bathroom bill,” which required citizens to use the corresponding restroom of their assigned sex at birth. She was 17 — the same age as Jules at Euphoria’s outset — and represented one of many North Carolinians unfairly targeted by the bill. The campaign was successful, in part: The bathroom bill was repealed (though replaced with something only moderately less discriminatory), and Schafer pushed on with her life, moving to New York City and finding work as a model.

Euphoria’s depiction of transness, which has been the composite effort of Levinson, Schafer, and trans consultant Scott Turner Schofield, is remarkably genuine. Most trans characters in pop culture exist on the periphery, or spend their story lines grappling with their transition. (Many, significantly, are played by cisgender actors.)

Jules’s transition, like Schafer’s, occurred well before the events of the show, and her story line deals with navigating queer desire. In an interview, Schofield credited Schafer with adding vivid color to Levinson’s sketch of Jules: “It feels authentic because it is authentic,” he said. “It’s something that is really there and really of this moment because it was brought to the table by an actual person.”

Schafer’s adolescence was mostly ordinary. Her father was a pastor and the family moved between congregations in New Jersey and Arizona before eventually settling in North Carolina. (When asked about her spirituality, Schafer gives the measured response of a progressive Senate candidate: “That’s something pretty fluid. I’d say a work in progress, but I do feel spiritual in some senses.”) Her bedroom was painted lime green, and she had a matching Neopet, Shoyru, a chubby, lime-green dragon, who patiently waited for her in one digital world while she learned about hormone therapy from a trans YouTuber in another.

At 16, Schafer moved to Winston-Salem to study at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. “I always wanted to be an artist,” she says. More specifically, she wanted to illustrate comics. She reveals a black notebook that travels with her like an appendage, filled with scribblings, sketches, studies. Schafer’s drawings infrequently appear on her Instagram, often in black and white, often grotesque portraits of herself and other characters dressed in otherworldly fashions, animated in movement, almost writhing.

“When you think about it, [my work] has this common thread of creating the identity of a person,” Schafer says. “Even when I was trying to make comic books, the characters were my favorite part to make, what their outfits were and what that meant about them and how it reflected who they were. Telling stories or trying to portray a message through a body, how that body looks in a garment, and how the garment affects the way the body moves; to modeling, which is bringing garments to life with your body; then to acting, which is bringing a character to life with your body and mind. It feels linked in a lot of ways.”

“That’s been the project of my life,” she says. “Just trying to feel seen and learn how to see others correctly.”

Schafer glances at her window. There is a brief moment at dusk when Los Angeles begins to glitter, as the city is pulled inexorably into purple night, a great, wide plain shimmering into the future. In a few days, she’ll return to North Carolina. The roads there snake between the misty foothills of the Appalachians. Schafer likes to drive the mountain highway. It’s peaceful and meditative. Clouds sometimes fall from the sky and lay downy on the road, but her truck cuts right through them, heading toward a clearer place.

For W’s 2020 TV Portfolio, we asked 21 of the most sought-after names in television to embody their favorite characters from their favorite shows of the past few months—and to explain why we should all be (re-)watching The Sopranos, Ozark, Schitt’s Creek, and, yes, Floor Is Lava. To see all the images and discover their picks, click here.

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.”

You’ve said in the past that your default is to be internal and to stay home, and I’m wondering whether quarantining changed that.

It’s really complicated. I will always and forever be an introvert. But I absolutely 100 percent miss all the social things that we can’t do right now, like dancing with my friends, just being dumbasses in the city. But at the same time, before quarantine, my relationship to alone time had been changing—I was going out a lot. I was doing an every-weekend thing, plus maybe a weekday or two. It was pretty frequent; I was kind of surprising myself with that. I knew that was going to change because of work starting, but I didn’t know it was going to change because of a pandemic. Alas, here we are. But I do feel as though I have learned how to refall in love with my alone time after seeing it in a new light and going through all of the phases of isolation in quarantine.

Why is Neon Genesis Evangelion the show that got you through quarantine? 

Anyone who’s into anime should watch this show; it’s a masterpiece. I just had it on a lot. I had already seen it before quarantine. But at the beginning of quarantine, when I was holed up in my apartment writing, I always had it playing on my projector—just the visuals, no sound. I would have music on. I like having a projector because you can just play things that are aesthetically pleasing, and it’s almost like a moving picture frame in your apartment. And I just loved the visuals of that show. So I had it on a lot during my big creative outburst phase in quarantine. I was doing a hundred different things during those two months: painting, drawing, writing, storyboarding—anything that I could get my hands on.

Was it a creative outlet for stress, or were you just feeling the inspiration? 

I think it was a lot of things. I had free time to do artwork, and it was like, Oh, I’m actually terrified of the state of the world and the state of my brain right now. So it was also a coping mechanism. Also, it’s just like, I didn’t want to get bored. I don’t like being bored.

Can you describe some of the work you created while the show was playing in the background? 

There’s two months worth of shit that I was making. I was oil-painting this mouth that was falling apart. I had a few nights where I spread out this giant roll of paper on the floor, and I filled it up with this really thick black marker that I really like, with doodles.

I know you wanted to illustrate comic books before you got into modeling and acting. So is it safe to say that you’re a big manga and anime fan? 

Absolutely. I grew up reading comic books, ever since I could remember, because my dad was really into them. He was an Aquaman fanatic, so I grew up largely on the DC comic books. My favorite characters were Hawkwoman—yeah, she was definitely my favorite character—and then Green Lantern, too. I just loved those worlds. And then that evolved into an interest in anime, then manga, when I was in middle school. And then I started finding these sites that played the anime for free.

Do you have a favorite anime? 

Already a successful artist, HUNTER SCHAFER is now best known as the breakout star of HBO’s hit teen drama Euphoria. Here, she talks to HANNA HANRA about her burgeoning acting career, co-writing and co-producing Jules’ special episode of the cult series and the personal passion projects she’s excited about in 2021

Even over the medium of Zoom, Hunter Schafer’s wild and enchanting energy instantly permeates the airwaves, as we meet to chat just before Christmas. “What time is it there? Oh, laaaaaate,” she draws, before gushing, “Oh wow, oh gosh, who is this?!” as my dog walks across the screen. It’s 7pm, and it’s hard not to be spellbound by her.

This could be, in part, because of the impressive array of credentials that we are here to discuss. At the age of 22, Schafer has already starred in one of HBO’s hit breakout shows: 2019’s Euphoria, which was her debut acting role; she shares joint lead with Emmy-winning actor Zendaya. As a model, Schafer’s walked up and down many runways, and recently became the face of Shiseido. She’s also a talented artist in her own right. And, when she was still a high-school student, she acted as a plaintiff against the state of North Carolina, resulting in trans people being able to use a bathroom of their choosing.

Growing up in North Carolina, Schafer never considered herself a performer – she wanted to go to New York to study art (she had a place at London’s Central Saint Martins, too), which she would fund by modeling. Like many people who have grown up in a small town, a city like New York – or London or LA – acted like a beacon; a place to find a like-minded community. It is notable, then, that Schafer’s big acting break meant returning to a small town, albeit a fictional one, and partly reliving that life.

Euphoria, which was created and written by Sam Levinson, follows a group of teenagers navigating the world: sex, addiction, friendships, love, trauma, abuse, sexuality and identity are all themes tackled by the show. Once she had accepted the role, Schafer worked with Levinson on developing her character, Jules Vaughn, who is a captivating newcomer to East Highland High School.

Like most of the characters, Jules does not have an easy ride through the show. “A lot of her spirals line up with Sam’s and my spirals,” Schafer says of using the experience to process parts of her own life. “I know that not every show functions like this, but Sam is so collaborative, open and encouraging. Working on this character has been the most cathartic artistic experience I’ve ever had.”

But TV sets can be difficult places to work. Behind the camera, tens of people are watching as you allow yourself to be vulnerable and emotional, or as you shoot an intimate sex scene. Schafer seems to have taken this in her stride, though. “All of those experiences have taught me so much, even if they were terrifying,” she says. “But it’s good to get out of your comfort zone. It blows my mind that I got paid to try acting. Just to give it a shot. They took a chance on me.”

The chance more than paid off. During lockdown, Levinson wrote two special episodes that bridge the end of season one and the start of season two – a visual post-script to the emotional ending that left viewers in a mixed state of disbelief, shock and tears. In addition to co-writing one of these episodes, Schafer also co-produced it. “During quarantine, [Sam and I would] call each other and chat shit and throw ideas around. We started writing a different script and then that got put aside,” she says. “He was tossing around certain ideas and for some reason Jules was trending on Twitter. That helped us cement what we did in the end. I helped write the final script and was there for preproduction and helped to plan out the shots and storyboard it. All that influenced the performance because I knew the script on this whole other level.”

Lockdown, it seems for Schafer, has been pretty busy. “I’m living out of a suitcase right now and I’m not mad at it,” she laughs. She started and dropped several writing projects. “I just didn’t sleep and then that work fell in on itself.” She then packed up the LA apartment she was renting next to the Euphoria studio and drove back to North Carolina.

“It’s been an interesting year for mental health. Everyone’s been forced to sit with themselves and confront a lot of stuff. Personally, that’s not something I’ve ever done before and this year really forced me to do that. That was really the bulk of my quarantine journey,” she smiles, “confronting stuff and using work as a pretty large coping mechanism.”

Like Jules, Schafer transitioned in high school but, back then, trans people were largely an anomaly in pop culture, particularly in TV and film. Relegated to tragic story arcs, or being side-lined, there were not many roles around for trans actors. Now, being part of something as joyful and sad, nuanced and complex as Euphoria must have been quite an exhilarating experience. How did she feel when it was first released?

“The first couple of weeks when the show came out were a little scary – because I don’t think people knew what it was,” reflects Schafer. “But, by the end, people resonated with it and would message me and say that they felt seen or [that they] could come out or think about something in a certain way, and that is pretty special.”

At the age of 17, Schafer challenged the state of North Carolina in federal court over a law that would mean trans people had to use public bathrooms that aligned with their assigned sex at birth. It was repealed, no doubt partly thanks to Schafer’s input. But it wasn’t and isn’t necessarily her objective to be a spokesperson for trans people.

“I don’t think I should be a spokesperson for any community! But, as far as the individual and emotional, nothing gets me more than having a moment with another T girl. I’m like… [she emits a long squeak]. There is a wavelength that is special and important. Whenever I see another T girl or a pair of lesbians, I’m like, ‘Yes!’ It’s a good feeling to know that you are not singular.”

Talking publicly about anything that is trans-related can often become politicized, but that is far from the most human form of discussion. “I am far more interested in talking about it in something like the [Euphoria special] episode because it takes a more philosophical approach to transness and queerness and because it’s more emotional and abstract. I think that is more relevant,” Schafer says.

On the show, Jules’ style is colorful and chaotic, with big, bold slashes of makeup paired with minuscule skirts and wedge-soled sneakers. Today, Schafer is dressed rather more demurely in a simple Breton top, her blonde hair scraped back and a bridge piercing at the top of her nose. During Euphoria’s development, she says she would excitedly send costume designer Heidi Bivens mood boards of dreamy, pixie-esque outfits – ie, how she wished she’d dressed in high school.

Schafer recently signed a contract with Shiseido as a global ambassador. “I think they have such a cool take on being artistic with the way you apply makeup. I don’t often wear a lot of makeup, but when I do, I like to have fun with it,” says Schafer. The role has also led to her evolving and reflecting on what makes her feel beautiful. “I honestly feel like a different person compared to how I felt at the start of this year,” she says, brightly.

So, as one very strange year ends and another begins, where does Schafer – with so many possibilities at her fingertips – see herself going from here? Living out of a suitcase, picking her creative outlets: she is the definition of keeping it moving, of millennial fluidity. “I don’t know where I will go next!” she proclaims. “We are supposed to start filming season two, which makes me happy. Ever since Euphoria, it’s been go, go, go. I’ve been trying to make it be stable, [to] have a career. I want to keep writing and working on my own practices, but other than that it feels very up in the air. I genuinely don’t know what’s going on.”

She pauses for a second as someone knocks on her door. “You feel like you should be doing something or being productive and sometimes, you know, it’s important just to let yourself exist.”

Visiting town for an awards ceremony, the star of HBO’s “Euphoria” unwinds with “Ghost in the Shell” and screamo music.

Hunter Schafer’s eyes were boring a hole through her gray hotel room wall, left hand cupping her cheek as though, by wishing hard enough, she could convince the events of the day she was trying to recall to surface.

“Let’s see, I know I did the Gotham Awards … yesterday?” the 22-year-old model and breakout star of HBO’s “Euphoria” said in a video call earlier this month.

Not quite — the ceremony had been the day before.

“My bad,” she said, grinning in a light blue hoodie and black Carhartt-style jacket after just returning from an outdoor photo shoot on a chilly New York afternoon. “Time is confusing right now.”

The past year and a half has been a whirlwind for Schafer, who is transgender, since she made her acting debut as Jules opposite Zendaya’s addiction-tormented Rue on “Euphoria,” the Emmy-winning drama series about teenagers navigating the temptations of drug use at a Southern California high school. Schafer turns in a sensitive, gut-wrenching performance as a 17-year-old transgender girl who struggles with depression, bullying and gender dysphoria and has a love interest who can’t seem to stay clean.

And now she’s taking another leap — into writing. Schafer co-wrote the show’s second special episode, which premieres Sunday on HBO Max, with the “Euphoria” creator Sam Levinson. “The writing process took months,” she said. “There was a week where we spent hours on the phone every day to get the episode fleshed out.”

Schafer tracked her cultural diary while in New York for the 30th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards earlier this month, from her red-eye arrival on Jan. 10 to falling asleep to screamo music two days later. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Sunday Morning

I got some sleep on my red-eye flight to New York, where I’d be presenting at the Gotham Independent Film Awards on Monday night. I listened to the “Kajillionaire” soundtrack in the car on my way to my hotel in SoHo. I’m in awe of how beautiful Emile Mosseri’s songs are — I’ve been listening to them constantly.

Sunday Afternoon

I walked around Downtown while listening to this Aaron Cartier album that one of my L.A. friends put me onto, “Aaron Cartier Best Dog.” It’s energetic and gets my New York endorphins going. Then I sat in bed and watched the series finale of “Veneno,” which is my favorite show that I’ve been watching recently. It made me super emo, but it has some of the best portrayals of trans femmes I’ve seen on TV in a very long time — maybe ever.

Sunday Evening

I went to dinner with some friends in my pod at KazuNori, which is this sushi place with amazing hand rolls. They wrap them right there and bring them out fresh, so the seaweed is still crunchy and the rice is so soft. Definite upgrade from the packaged microwave meals I was living off of before. Then my friend and I popped into this lingerie store across the street, WANT Apothecary, and got these little stripper dresses — just for fun, because it’s important to dress up and put on a show for yourself in quarantine.

Back at my hotel, I watched the anime movie “Ghost in the Shell” to go to sleep, which was spooky and gave me simulation vibes. Being in that existential head space influenced my dreams in a weird way.

Monday Morning

I’m really bad about hitting the snooze button in the morning, so I need something pretty jarring to wake me up — I just use the regular annoying iPhone alarm. But I’ve also been sleeping to the Kajillionaire soundtrack, so I get nice little bits of that in my five minutes before my alarm goes off again.

One thing that’s changed since the start of the pandemic is my shower routine. When I’m filming, I’ve been obsessed with this thing my friend told me you can do where, at the end of your shower, you turn the nozzle all the way cold and let yourself sit in the freezing water for 30 seconds. Its brings you to life.

I used to pick out my outfits the night before in high school, but, now that I’m living out of a suitcase, I’ve edited my wardrobe so everything kind of goes with each other, so I’m never too stressed out about whether my outfit makes sense. One of my favorite T-shirts is from the L.A. brand Come Tees, which has beautiful prints of animated characters hat are super bright and colorful.

Monday Afternoon

Hair and makeup came in to get me ready for the Gotham Awards. I wore a bondage-y dress from Matthew Williams’s Givenchy collection with a belt full of gold padlocks and a necklace from my friend Darius Khonsary’s new jewelry collection, Darius Jewels. She’s made this incredible collection of gold, antique-looking pieces that are also modern and mythical.

Monday Evening

I sat at my own table, socially distanced from the other presenters, at the Gotham Awards ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street. I gave out the short form Breakthrough Series award, which I was so happy to see “I May Destroy You” win. That show took me out when it came out last year — it was [expletive] incredible. I’m a huge Michaela Coel fan.

I got back to my hotel around 10 p.m., where I ordered some vegetable fried rice and stripped down to my underwear. Then I scrolled through my friends’ Instagram stories. Gogo Graham, who’s a fashion designer, has an amazing feed — I’m floored every time she releases new garments. And Dara Allen, a stylist and model I used to work with, is a dream — I’m entranced by the amazing looks she creates out of her wild collection of clothes.

I’ve been listening to pretty varied music lately: “Dawning,” Davia Spain’s jazzy debut album, and the rapper Quay Dash’s EP “Transphobic.” And my friend Tweaks just came out with a new EP, “Older Now,” which is this futuristic, experimental thing.

Tuesday Afternoon

I came across this album, “Hunter Schafer’s Boyfriend,” by an artist named CHASE after someone tagged me in it on Twitter. I was like, “What is this?” Then I listened to it, and it’s actually sick. I genuinely enjoyed it — there’s something electronic and poppy about it, but also elements of rap and maybe a little screamo, too.

Tuesday Evening

I walked to a Japanese restaurant, AOI Kitchen, with three themed mini houses — there were flowers on the wall, and it felt like a little fairy house. It didn’t feel like I was in New York at all. They had really good tofu, mushrooms and sake. Then I walked back to my hotel and listened to some screamo music before relaxing into something a bit more restful — some songs by Colleen, which sound like something plants would dance to.

On Her Wish List

I love drawing by the window in my hotel in New York, coffee in hand — that’s my dream of a day. I love Basquiat, Egon Schiele and Sage Adams. I go through waves where I get really into drawing for a couple of weeks, then I set it aside for a bit because I don’t feel that creative. Hopefully I’m going to go through another one soon.

In just a few short years, Hunter Schafer has come to embody the utter joy and liberation of expressing oneself through individual, highly imaginative style. In sparing no detail, the 22-year-old model, actor, and LGBTQ rights activist has become Gen Z’s foremost makeup disruptor too: both onscreen in her first-ever acting role portraying trans teenager Jules Vaughn on HBO’s Euphoria, where she’s collaborated with lead makeup artist Doniella Davy on array of now iconic looks, and off of it, shining on the red carpet with directional, avant-garde beauty statements that run the gamut from a splash of pearls across the eyes to a Swarovski-encrusted finger inspired by Tokyo lights at night.

Given her cerebral approach to beauty, it’s only natural that Schafer, who honed her makeup skills in part through her visual arts education (she graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts in 2017), would join forces with a brand like Shiseido, becoming the Japanese brand’s Global Makeup Ambassador. “Shiseido has their finger on a pulse that’s really artistic and kind of free in the sense of approaching makeup with a freedom and an acknowledgement of yourself, and doing what makes you feel good,” Schafer tells Vogue over Zoom, wearing a sculptural white Yohji Yamamoto confection with an ethereal complexion and a metallic glitter manicure. “That’s really how I like to approach makeup in whatever form that takes, whether it’s something more glamorous or something more artistic and expressive—they kind of have all the tools to bring those looks to life.”

Ahead of the forthcoming second Euphoria special episode, which centers on Jules, Schafer discusses how makeup is inextricably linked to her self-expression and the impact of Euphoria on the next generation of beauty rule-breakers.

Vogue: From your earliest memories through today, how has makeup served as a tool of self-expression for you?

Hunter Schafer: It’s come a long way from where I started. [Laughs.] I definitely began experimenting with makeup sort of in secret, like stealing my sister’s stuff and doing it behind closed doors in my bedroom just to see how it felt and see how it looked. And then it moved into like sneaking it to school and putting it on, like, in the bathroom once I got to school and then taking it off before my parents picked me up. And then, you know, in high school I got more comfortable with it and was at a different place with myself and began to kind of have more fun with it. And that’s kind of evolved into like where I’m at now, where it’s really just about making sure there’s a harmony between how I feel on the inside and making sure that’s represented on the outside.

Do you remember the first makeup look you ever created?

One of the first times I had ever experimented with makeup was at a sleepover when I was in middle school. We got into my friend’s eye shadow and eyeliner, and I remember applying, like, orange and red eye shadow and then doing these black flame lines on top of it. It was a lot of fun.

From choosing colors to sketching shapes, how does being a visual artist and illustrator inform your approach to makeup?

I think they go hand in hand. As far as when it comes to color, mixing color in gradients, line work, and variation of like line thickness and stuff, it can all be translated to terms that I learned when I studied visual art. Those are all things we learned in drawing and painting class and even in sculpture, you know? So when I’m thinking about doing an eye shadow look, I think about it in the context of an oil painting, which is all about doing a lot of thin layers of colors to create something more dimensional. Or, it might be something super graphic, like a line drawing with an eyeliner or something. It all makes a lot of sense to me in my head that way and has made it that much more fun to approach artistically.

Do you like to do makeup on other people too?

Yeah! I think I’m probably better at doing makeup on…well, actually, maybe not. I’m not sure. [Laughs.] But I know I liked doing my friends’ and having my friends do my makeup. I think it’s really funny. It’s actually sometimes a struggle because when they’re doing something on your eyes, you’re half looking at them and they’re super close to your face and all you can see is this sort of deformed blob that’s their face. I usually can’t stop laughing and then it becomes an issue. But yeah, I really love experimenting with [makeup] with my friends, on my friends, you know?

As a creative, where do you draw inspiration, and how does it translate to beauty?

I draw inspiration from everything, like artists that I’m thinking about at the time. I just bought a book about Aya Takano yesterday and I’ve been looking at those photos, and I think she has really wonderful references for makeup, for fashion, for anything really. But also like my friends, musicians…I mean, inspiration is inspiration. And also more than anything else, I’ve used art to feel like I can express myself or let myself shine through in a way that I might not be able to otherwise.

What are a few of the makeup products you can’t live without right now?

I’m really excited about the Radiant Lifting Foundation, especially in this press round when I’m having to dress up more and do more put-together looks. I never want to look too covered up or anything like that. And so this foundation feels really, really perfect for that. It feels like I’m wearing nothing. It also just enables a glow to happen that I feel is just a really nice canvas to, you know, experiment with other things on top, like for squiggles or sparkles or whatever it may be.

Recently I’ve been playing with eyeliner a little bit. I did an Instagram post not too long ago where I had drawn these symbols on my face with the Shiseido MicroLiner, which has a super fine point. It really felt like I was using one of my art pens, too! I drew one of my favorite symbols for my community on one side and then a sword on the other, which are, like, both motifs in my art or, like, my sketchbook, I would say. And that was really fun. In that case it was black eyeliner, but I’ve been experimenting with the colored liners and these colorful ControlledChaos mascaras as well. So they can match up or contrast. That’s been fun to mix and match with whatever else is happening on my face!

Over the past two years, Euphoria has had such a major influence on youth culture and beyond. What did you love about stepping into the role of Jules, and how did makeup help you get into character?

It was my first time acting, like coming into Jules. So thankfully the team on Euphoria, from Sam, the writer and creator of the show, to Donni, it’s been a massively collaborative experience. So I had a lot of hand in helping bring Jules to life. And, particularly with the makeup with Donni, we had so much fun just kind of brainstorming these abstract, colorful looks that reflect a certain scene or emotional energy. I think we try to be pretty mindful of how makeup can accentuate or contrast something that we’re trying to portray in a scene. So it’s a lot of fun to think about. We had a lot of fun just constantly trying to outdo ourselves with the design.

It was so touching and striking to see how many young kids were recreating makeup looks from the show. What is it like to see that?

I still can’t believe it’s reached as far as it has. I mean, it’s really sweet to see kids seeing themselves in these characters and being able to try that on. I also just think, as a whole, Euphoria approaches makeup with a creativity that I hope is encouraging of its audience to just do whatever they want, because that’s kind of all we did for the show. We were like, “Let’s do whatever, let’s have fun with it!”

Ahead of this weekend’s special episode, co-written by Schafer, the 21-year-old actor talks about fruitful rumination and the colored eyeliners she would teleport to her high school self.

It was a beatific vision: a smiling Hunter Schafer, dressed in a Yohji Yamamoto creation as if beamed in from some utopian future. “It’s a vibe,” the actor laughed over Zoom earlier this week, referring to the white fabric plumes levitating off her shoulders. After months where normal life seemingly went up in flames, the diaphanous look (courtesy of her newfound stylist, Law Roach) felt like the visual antithesis: a fresh gust of wind.

Or that was the national mood, anyway. It was the eve of Inauguration Day, and change was afoot. As much as the occasion belonged to septuagenarian Joe Biden, young leaders shared the spotlight: poet Amanda Gorman, transfixing the crowd; Ella Emhoff, wooing the fashion cognoscenti; Greta Thunberg, with her skewering tweet. The sense that the rising generation can grapple with a complex reality and do it with style might have felt familiar to fans of HBO’s darkly glamorous teen drama Euphoria, headlined by Zendaya and Schafer.

It was just four years ago that Schafer, then a 17-year-old trans student at a North Carolina arts high school, served as a plaintiff against the state, seeking to overturn its discriminatory bathroom bill. Following a high-profile start as a fashion model, Schafer landed a breakout role in 2019’s Euphoria, playing a sylphlike trans teen (Jules) with an eye for ethereal, painterly makeup. Instantly a muse for the beauty-obsessed TikTok set, the actor also caught the attention of Shiseido, becoming a face of the forward-thinking Japanese cosmetics brand late last summer.

“Shiseido rides a really specific wavelength,” said Schafer, describing a way of treating “makeup as an art project versus an attempt to appeal to some standard or something, which is exactly how I like to approach it.” The actor’s own drawings—linework and figure studies brimming with energy—slip easily from sketchpad to skin. (And currently on her fingertips: “almost a comic of cell division,” she explained, holding up the glittering handiwork of Mei Kawajiri. “I asked her to do the stages of mitosis on my nails!”) That sense of experimentation carries through to the new campaign for Shiseido’s latest foundation, which sets the actor’s crystal-studded eyelids against an otherwise unadorned face. “I’m not interested in covering up or trying to look like someone else, and I feel like the Radiant Lifting foundation really just kind of lets my face shine through,” added Schafer.

The impulse toward candor foreshadows this weekend’s special episode of Euphoria, an emotional dive into Jules’s backstory, which Schafer co-wrote with Euphoria creator Sam Levinson. Here, the actor talks about the fruits of rumination, her trick to washable face tattoos, and the beauty finds she’d share with her high school self.

Vanity Fair: Euphoria‘s makeup is so entwined with Jules. How has that use of color and sparkle reflected or influenced how you’ve approached makeup?

Hunter Schafer: I think it’s sort of falling nicely in line with my personal evolution with makeup—from how I started wearing it in high school when I was first experimenting and trying to figure out if I wanted to look pretty or to serve a certain sort of gothness. Throughout the years, I’ve been able to move into something that feels more artistic and playful, which is definitely my comfort zone. The show gave me the tools—especially working with Donni [Davy, Euphoria’s makeup department head]—to take the approach of drawing on your face or just smearing some glitter on and seeing what works. I helped design the cloud look that Jules wears in episode 3 of Season 1, and I was really happy with that one.

What have you been experimenting with lately in terms of makeup?

I’ve been playing with illustrating things near my eyes. I recently just did this Instagram post where I had done almost face tattoos, with a symbol for my community that I really love, and then a sword. I was able to get pretty precise, actually. I used this guy: the MicroLiner Ink from Shiseido. It was a lot of fun! Half-committing to a face tattoo without actually having to stick a needle in my face was good.

It’s interesting that your first Shiseido campaign is for foundation, when we’ve come to associate you with experimental looks. How does it fit in with your own aesthetic?

I think Shiseido rides a really specific wavelength in that they have the right tools and sort of vibe as far as their brand—the looks they put out into the world that fall in line with being artistic. Since partnering with them, I’m learning a lot too. I wasn’t that well versed in foundation before, but it’s something I’m actually liking because it’s a really good blank canvas. It feels like I’m literally wearing nothing, which is a major plus for me in that it feels airy and my skin can breathe. But then it’s also doing all this work with the light technology and the sort of glow that I’m going for.

This year was so much about rumination. How did that shape this Jules episode?

Ruminating was sort of consequential to the pandemic, and quarantining definitely influenced, if not brought forth, my involvement [in] the Jules episode. Being forced to kind of sit with yourself for that amount of time—whether you like it or not—starts bringing up stuff that you may have not had time or the capacity to confront before. As far as my involvement as a co-writer and a co-producer and having that deep artistic involvement in the episode, I was able to really channel the stuff that was coming up for me. It was actually really cathartic in that way.

With Jules being younger than you and less settled in herself, it’s almost like you’re rewinding in some way. How would your high school self have felt in these makeup looks?

I would love to give the younger me the possibility of exploring makeup in the way that I’m able to do now—just because it’s freeing in a lot of senses, to feel like you have that autonomy over your face. You can really do whatever you want. I don’t think younger me completely understood that.

You mentioned the fake-tattoo liner. Are there other products that you would teleport back to your high school bathroom?

I think I was stealing whatever my sister had at the time, so definitely that eyeliner. They also have several colors of the Kajal InkArtist eyeliner and multicolored mascaras. I think little old me would have a blast pairing up designs with the eyeliners and then throwing on a different color of mascara—taking a color-blocky approach.

You spent a lot of the past year on the road: buying a truck, driving cross-country, spending time in North Carolina. What were your handful of creative essentials—both for art-making and makeup?

I definitely brought my watercolor, sketchbook, and ink. I also made the intention to have a bunch of disposable cameras on me. I got really into working with film over that trip, and I kind of photographed my way across the country, which was fun. As far as makeup goes, at night after being holed up in the car all day, I just got dressed up—as a lot of us are doing during quarantine. You know, I was in my truck with my messy bun and just in a T-shirt driving, so to make myself feel a little more glamorous I had some eyeliner that I played with, some shadow. I even got into a little lipstick. I don’t have much of a skin-care routine, but the one component that I actually truly use every time after I get out of the shower, every time after I walk outside and my skin feels dry or something, is this stuff: the Shiseido Essential Energy moisturizing cream. I live by it.

Warning: This post contains spoilers from this week’s special episode of “Euphoria.”

Hunter Schafer spent a half-hour screaming, sobbing and slamming her body against a door while shooting the latest episode of “Euphoria.”

The 22-year-old actress described it as the “most physically demanding scene” she’s ever filmed for the gritty HBO drama, which became known during its first season for graphic depictions of violence, sex and hard drugs. This sequence involved none of the above — just Schafer in character as Jules, a locked door and a devastating fear of what awaited on the other side.

The harrowing dream sequence occurs near the end of Friday’s “Euphoria” special, which sees Jules in a prolonged state of vulnerability and introspection. During the intense nightmare, Jules arrives at her imaginary New York City apartment to find her high school soulmate, Rue (Zendaya), alone and unresponsive in their bathroom.

Jules’ increasingly desperate pleas to “open the f— door” are met with ominous silence — an extension of last month’s episode, which saw the self-destructive Rue midrelapse in their shared dreamscape.

“It was kind of like letting the worst of Jules’ imagination take over,” Schafer says during a video call from New York City. “Which was really difficult, because even I personally love Rue so deeply and do not like to think about the images that I had to come up with in my head and sit with for that scene.”

Now streaming on HBO Max, the episode continues Schafer’s creative evolution. The Raleigh, N.C., native spent her late teen years working in New York as an in-demand runway model before making her acting debut in 2019 with “Euphoria,” on which she plays the effervescent new girl in town who develops a romantic and sometimes toxic relationship with her drug-addicted best friend. Schafer also co-wrote and co-executive produced the episode, titled “F— Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob,” with creator and showrunner Sam Levinson.

“Sam is super collaborative and has been from the beginning,” Schafer says. “He really wants all of us, as actors, to have input into our characters and their livelihoods.

“Taking that to the next level with really having a hand in what [Jules is] saying — and also in an episode that allows us to stay with her for a much longer period of time than we’d ever been able to in Season 1 — it was just really exciting.”

Filmed in October, the episode picks up after the emotional Season 1 finale, which saw Jules flee home for the city, leaving a distraught Rue in her wake. Now, Jules is back in suburbia — and in therapy — to unpack the trauma that led to her climactic getaway.

While brainstorming dialogue for the hourlong character study, Schafer and Levinson took turns pretending to be Jules and her therapist, imagining what might come up in conversation between a counselor and a 17-year-old in crisis.

“I would say a lot of the episode — particularly the therapy session — was birthed out of us just riffing and maybe accidentally falling into character while we were on the phone talking,” Schafer says. “There’s an element of play that I didn’t understand about writing before. Really, we were just acting on the phone, and I found that to be so useful and also fun to contribute to the script.”

The collaboration was therapeutic, not only for Jules but for Schafer, who struggled with adjusting to life in quarantine. Production on Season 2 of “Euphoria” was postponed just three days before it was scheduled to begin in March, and a “maybe too optimistic” Schafer hadn’t anticipated spending months in isolation.

“It was a rude awakening,” she says. “I think we were all grasping onto the hope that [the pandemic] would be something that would maybe last, like, a month or two. And then that started to fade away as well. We all just surrendered to quarantine and stewing in our homes.”

A self-professed workaholic, Schafer was forced to slow down and address mental health issues that had been lurking “under the surface for a long time.”

“Having to really sit with myself and not having an objective was terrifying and brought up a lot of things maybe I hadn’t processed yet,” she says. “I’m medicated now, and I feel more like myself than I have in years …. It sucked at the time because it was really kind of a crash and burn, but I’m so thankful for it.”

Key to Schafer’s healing process was resuming work on “Euphoria” in a new creative role. Shortly after Levinson penned the series’ first holiday special, starring Zendaya as Rue, he and Schafer began generating ideas for a followup from Jules’ perspective.

Schafer shared with him a poem she wrote upon graduating high school:

“It was about this strange spiral I was having about hormone therapy and making an analogy between learning how to find beauty within yourself,” says Schafer, who, like her character, is trans. “Like, rather than wanting to be as beautiful as another cis woman, wanting to be as beautiful as something even grander, like the ocean.”

Schafer’s reflection became the inspiration for “F— Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob,” during which Jules considers going off her hormones after coming to the self-critical realization that she’s “framed her entire womanhood around men.”

“Being trans is spiritual” for her, Jules explains to her therapist, and she doesn’t want to “stand still.”

“She is, rightfully so, going through a questioning of [herself] and the decisions [she’s] made before — not because they were wrong in any way but just because she is evolving as a human and is coming to understand herself in a deeper way,” Schafer says.

“Gender and self-expression are incredibly fluid and incredibly ever-changing,” she continues. “And I think it’s very emotional … and psychological in a way that’s outside political gender assignments of, like, male and female. Those are … not a fun way or a fruitful way to think about inhabiting your gender.”

In addition to the therapy session, the episode features a mix of dream and fantasy sequences — such as the apartment nightmare — as well as flashbacks providing further insight into Jules’ complex relationships with her mother and with Rue, both of whom struggle with addiction.

“Euphoria” has previously offered glimpses into Jules’ traumatic history with her mom, who is largely absent from the show. But Friday’s installment makes an explicit link between Jules’ turbulent upbringing and anxieties about Rue’s fragile hold on sobriety.

“Jules actively does not think about that a lot because it’s something that bothers her and hurts her,” Schafer says of Jules’ mother’s absence. “It makes sense, in a way, that her and Rue came together … also, it makes sense why they have the conflicts that they do, in that there are a lot of parallels between what Jules’ mother was going through and what Rue is going through.”

The end of Friday’s episode sees Rue and Jules (affectionately dubbed #Rules by fans) briefly reconnect for the first time since the Season 1 finale. But it isn’t exactly a fairytale reunion.

“I know Jules would have done anything to be held by or hold Rue again in that moment, after everything that happened,” Schafer says.

“Rue is not capable of doing that in that moment, and maybe Jules wasn’t either. But … you can tell that there’s still a vulnerable, raw love there between them.”

Though their midpandemic material has been heavy, even by “Euphoria” standards, Schafer was eager to return to set opposite Zendaya, fresh off her historic lead actress win at the 2020 Emmy Awards.

“It was hard,” Schafer said. “But she’s also the scene partner that I’ve spent the most time with and have shared the most with emotionally, so I always feel really comfortable with her and excited to see what happens because we both love our characters so much and we love their connection.”

Schafer was careful about revealing what’s in store for the pair in Season 2, only sharing the two will “reexamine their relationship.” (“That is so vague!” she says, laughing. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to get in trouble!”)

It remains unclear when Schafer will be able to revisit Jules — no announcements have been made about when the sophomore season will resume production. But there might be more writing in Schafer’s future.

“This was genuinely the most cathartic artistic experience I’ve ever had,” she says. “It was really special, being able to put that much of yourself into one singular product.”

The actress opens up about working with Shiseido, feeling beautiful, and plotting ‘Euphoria’ season 2.

Hunter Schafer is a 22-year-old model and Hollywood sensation with a starring role on the hit HBO show Euphoria. Her special episode, which she co-wrote with director Sam Levinson, airs today and spotlights her character Jules through her very tumultuous 2020.

But first and foremost, Schafer is an artist, and this shines through everything she does. “I really like to approach makeup as if it were an art project or something that could exist in my sketchbook,” she explains over Zoom. She’s even wearing what could be considered a work of art: a Yohji Yamamoto blouse with abstract adornments that frame her face, picked out by legendary stylist Luxury Law. The outfit, the makeup, and her partnership with Shiseido all align with her vision of the world—full of curved lines, like the doodles from her sketchbook jumped off the page. “In the beauty space, Shiseido has their finger on an artistic perspective with makeup that I really appreciate,” she explains. “It’s a really good fit.”

Speaking of good fits, Schafer opens up about the other matching puzzle pieces in her life: Screamo music, Tilda Swinton, and working to evolve the Euphoria beauty aesthetic in season 2.

As the new face of the Shiseido Radiant Lifting Foundation, tell me what you love about the product.

It honestly feels like I’m wearing nothing, which is wonderful. And somehow, despite the feeling of wearing nothing, it also feels like there’s a bit of a glow, and the light is bending and reflecting in a way that makes me feel really good. I also feel like my face is still coming through, because there’s a perception around foundation that’s the idea of covering up. I really like to try and let as much show through as I can whilst also creating a really nice palette to do whatever I’m going to do on top of it.

What’s your beauty routine been like in quarantine?

The spectrum has gotten broader in a sense because there are days where I do not leave my bed and I do not do anything. And then there are other days. I feel like a lot of my friends and I have been taking the opportunity to do something that resembles what we did in high school or in our teenage days, when we were first experimenting with makeup and did it alone in our bedrooms—just for ourselves and no one was even going to see it. I’ve been doing that a lot, which I’ve been having fun with because it really feels like it’s just for me, which I think is how makeup should be approached. I’ve been having fun with it and finding what feels good for the days when I feel like being a little more glammed up. I miss getting ready for an event or going out at night or something. There’s something really fun about the process of getting ready, so still trying to replicate that with makeup has been really fun.

Do you have a going out routine? Special playlist or rituals?

I have to say my beauty routine is very, very simple. It’s literally just shower and put on moisturizer, and I use Shiseido Essential Energy Moisturizing Cream. I live by it. I use it like three times a day. It’s amazing. Those are the only really solid aspects of my beauty routine. I always have music on and if I’m getting ready for something where I want to feel like a bad bitch or feel like I’m on myself, I have a couple of playlists for that mood. Or if I’m with a friend, I usually let my friends take over because I can’t say I’m the best at exploring or finding new music. I can largely attribute my taste to just having friends with good taste.

You’re also an artist and love to draw. Is there a piece you made that you turned into a beauty look?

I think I definitely channeled [art] into my collaboration with Doni [Doniella Davy, Euphoria’s lead makeup artist] on building Jules. Jules is more artistic, like kind of abstract looks. Recently, I played with this really thin eyeliner, the microliner ink from Shiseido, and I drew this symbol from my community that I really love on one side of my eye and like a sword on the other eye. And both of those are things I like to draw. They end up in my sketchbook a lot of the time. It was really cool to be able to approach my face with the sense of like, ‘Oh, it’s just using a regular ink pen.’ It almost felt like I had face tattoos with the subtracted commitment of actually having someone tattoo my face.

Who are your favorite beauty influences, past or present?

I always say Kelsey Lu because I found out about her in high school and I just thought she was the coolest. She has a lot of fun as far as colors go. It’s the same thing with Tilda Swinton. I mean, the beauty, fashion, everything—I’m like, I want to be her. There’s this rapper, BbyMutha, she’s awesome and I love what she does with makeup as well.

Euphoria ushered in this new wave of beauty, best exemplified by the rhinestones and color that now fill For You pages. Are you and Doniella raising the bar for season 2? Have you talked about what’s next at all?

I think there’s maybe a sense of pressure to do that. I think the interesting thing with sequences or a season jumping into another season is the idea of having to top yourself or level up. We’ve been doing our best to avoid that pressure because whatever we did in the first season worked, in a lot of ways. We’re just trying to remember to stay true to the characters and stay true to the wavelength of the show rather than trying to create the next Tiktok trend or something.

Do you ever look at your co-stars’ makeup [Alexa Demie as Madi, Barbie Ferreira as Kat, Zendaya as Rue, and Sydney Sweeney as Cassie] and personally identify with their beauty looks more than Jules? Or are you Jule through and through?

Jules is definitely the most like me and I really put a lot of myself into the collaboration I did with Doni. When we first started filming season 1, I was still kind of in my colors and like, Oh my gosh, I have access to all these fun clothes [but] I think I’ve been a little goth lately. I’ve been wearing a lot of black and I’ve gotten into screamo recently. That’s like, happening. It’s had an effect on me.

In that regard, there’s a part of me that’s maybe a little bit jealous of Kat’s makeup and that she inhabits a bit more of a goth beauty world, which I love. To be honest, what I want to channel and be changes every single day.

With your special episode release and season 2 on the way, are we going to see some character growth through the makeup looks of Jules?

Yeah. We’ve talked about it a lot. We’ve always been attentive to how the makeup services a scene or reflects a scene or amplifies a certain aspect of a scene and where the character is at and what the character is feeling. Where season 1 left off is repositioning Jules for season 2 in a new place now that a lot of big things have just happened. I think there will be a bit of an evolution and some new vibes and aesthetics coming from Jules.

When do you personally feel you’re most beautiful?

I think I feel the most beautiful when I feel like myself. That sounds corny, but it’s true. When I feel like one and in unison between how I’m feeling on the inside—which is ever-changing and always evolving—and how I look on the outside is a really special feeling. It’s a feeling I’m particularly attuned to and that if that’s not matching up, I know something’s off.

That feels really important to me and there’s almost a sense of euphoria when those things do harmonize. Also, when it’s someone who’s been formerly pretty insecure, it’s taken a lot of work for me to be comfortable with my face and how I look. I’ve grown to really like how I look now. So letting that shine through always feels really important and is a part of how I feel beautiful, because my face is what makes me unique and that’s beautiful to me.

Hunter Schafer will not wear a sweatshirt to your Zoom meeting. You’ll notice the flames first — silver fingers, a foot long, undulating in the air, surrounding either side of her face, thanks to a tentacled Yohji Yamamoto blouse. “It’s a suit with culotte bottoms!” she delightedly tells me.

Everything Schafer does is the ultimate expression of who she is, including her wardrobe choices, which vibrate at a slightly higher frequency than others’. (Frequency is a word she loves.) She’s the star and co-writer of the latest Euphoria special episode, “Fuck Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob,” which aired last week on HBO. She’s also the new face of Shiseido, and appears in her first campaign video for the brand, doing a sort of interpretive dance for its newest foundation product that somehow showcases the beauty of light and movement. The Cut talked to Schafer about high-frequency beauty, the catharsis that comes from expressing yourself, and Euphoria makeup-removal tricks.

How has your pandemic been?
My pandemic has been a journey. I was fighting it for the first few months, and then I gave into it and got a rhythm going, in terms of working and doing things that feel good for me. I’ve developed a beauty routine, like a lot of my friends, because we can’t go out to events and feel glamorous or go have a night out and get dressed up. I’ve been putting on a full look for myself, doing my makeup and having fun with it.

Everything I’m wearing for my face is for something internal, like a Zoom, or it’s just for me, and no one else is going to see it. It reminds me of the stuff I used to do in high school. I would do it for myself, to feel good or play. It’s really fun, and a good reminder of why I love makeup.

What was your first experience with makeup?
I think my first experience was at a sleepover when I was in middle school. My friends let me get into their makeup. I remember going at my face with orange and red eye shadows and eyeliners, and I drew a flame or something. I accessed a part of myself I hadn’t before.

It had me thinking about makeup more frequently. I felt good wearing it and really enjoyed it. When I’m in a character’s makeup or costume, with acting, it’s that much easier to get into it. I liked knowing that makeup could give me agency into finding a more confident and bolder part of myself.

You said in a statement about your partnership with Shiseido, “I want to bring more visibility to the notion that you can move beyond one beauty ideal or standard. I’m about leveling up and finding your own frequency in makeup.” Why does the word frequency appeal to you and your beauty sensibility?
I use that word for a lot of things; I find it quite applicable. There are a million sound frequencies or light frequencies or light waves. With makeup and Shiseido, everyone has their own frequency, or way of radiating their own unique light. That’s something that is really fun in the context of makeup. It’s about channeling a frequency and becoming something, but also letting your own preexisting frequency shine through.

In some sense, foundation is thought of as covering. I like Shiseido’s new Synchro Skin Radiant Lifting Foundation because when I am wearing it, it feels like I’m wearing nothing, so I don’t feel like I’m being covered. I feel like it’s letting me shine through. It’s almost like moving the light around my face in a way that still feels like me, giving me a little glow or radiance, which is good.

How would you describe frequency to someone who isn’t familiar with whether or not they’ve felt it?
I describe it as a vibe — a vibe you get from someone, like when you first meet them and before you exchange too many words. A lot of times when I meet someone who I grow to be good friends with, I can tell off the frequency and the way we interact with each other. I’m like, Oh, okay, cool, we are on the same page. That’s the more human way to equate it.

What’s something that is high frequency to you in makeup or beauty?
Looks that I feel like I’ve been able to illustrate or explore with — I’m not trying to look like a certain kind of pretty or like someone else. Even with eyeliner, I recently did a post on Instagram where I drew shapes near my eyes — a symbol in my community that I love and a sword, using this guy, the MicroLiner Ink Eyeliner. Just being able to have symbolism on my face, that feels cool.

You’ve also said that you use makeup to “bring something internal to the external world.” What are you trying to bring out?
The way we feel on the inside changes every single moment, that’s the human experience. There is a certain kind of catharsis or euphoria when how you feel on the inside is near or parallel to how you feel like you’re presenting on the outside.

Maybe you wake up one morning and you’re like, Today, I feel like a Mark Rothko painting. You can then think about re-creating that or channeling that in some way, maybe you’re thinking about his paintings and the layers and layers of gorgeous colors and yummy surfaces. You can create that with makeup, mixing layers of colors or mirroring so you can radiate that.

This is a more technical question: We know a lot of the beautiful Euphoria makeup looks were labor-intensive. What did you use, or what was your routine to remove the makeup after filming?
It’s not as complicated as putting the makeup looks on. But the Euphoria makeup team got me into using hot towels. After a long day of work and reapplying and reapplying makeup, we would just use a little towelette, microwave it for a minute, and then let it sit on my face and permeate all the makeup so I could wipe it off.

With anything remaining, we would remove it with a classic makeup remover and Q-tips and cotton pads. I would always, always moisturize after that and be ready to go — I use the Shiseido Essential Energy Moisturizer. I live by it. I use it all the time, in the morning, after I walk around outside when my face feels dry, and at night. That was basically the undoing of all the Euphoria looks.

The actress, who portrays Jules Vaughn on the hit HBO series, talks all things beauty

The colorful, glitter-packed makeup seen throughout HBO’s hit series Euphoria has inspired a new generation of beauty lovers to experiment in innovative ways — including star Hunter Schafer.

The actress, who portrays Jules Vaughn on the HBO drama, has found similarities between herself and her Euphoria character from their fashion interests to beauty techniques. “My makeup routine is similar to Jules in that we both love to play with shape, lines and bold colors. I think Jules and I share interests in art and fashion, which go hand in hand with how I navigate creating makeup looks,” says Schafer, who is the face of Shiseido’s new Synchro Skin Radiant Lifting Foundation.

While Schafer, 21, loves the bold hues and dramatic details of Jules’ makeup aesthetic, she admits that she embraces a more natural approach at times.

“Recently I’ve been trying more sophisticated and sleek looks, which perhaps is a product of me getting older,” the 21-year-old tells PEOPLE.

When she wants a more sleek approach, she grabs Shiseido’s new Sychro Skin Radiant Lifting Foundation which she loves because it “feels like you’re not wearing anything when you have it on.”

“I feel like foundation is associated with covering up, but when I wear this my skin still shines through. I really appreciate that,” the actress says.

But she still allows for some fun looks. “What I have learned during the quarantine is I have played around more with makeup,” she shares. “It really has brought me back to my youth.”

While she was at home amid the coronavirus pandemic last year, she also spent time doing things to “support growth,” which led to her getting “a lot more creative.”

During a stop on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, she said she taught herself about screenwriting by taking Shonda Rhimes’ Master Class and binge-watching Grey’s Anatomy, all of which prepared her for her own writing gig for Euphoria.

HBO released two special standalone episodes of the hit show shot during the pandemic, meant to tide fans over until the cast and crew can complete season 2 as originally planned before the COVID-19 lockdown. And Schafer wrote the special episode focusing on her character Jules. “It was just really nice to be able to put my energy into something,” Schafer told Fallon.

During the interview, she also explained that this writing opportunity came when she was struggling with her mental health.

“I have to be honest, I was not doing super well mentally at that time, you know, as quarantine has put a lot of us in that place,” she said. “I had taken it upon myself to research mental hospitals in North Carolina. I was like, ‘It might be a good decision to do that with where I was at.'”

Instead, she ended up channeling her energy into writing, but doesn’t want to dissuade people from seeking psychiatric help when necessary. “I think mental hospitals are great if you need to go to them,” she said.

If you or someone you know need mental health help, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.

The actor on fame, Euphoria, and writing her own stories.

After two years trailblazing such runways as Miu Miu and Marc Jacobs, 22-year-old actor, writer, and producer Hunter Schafer landed a starring role on HBO’s Euphoria. Playing 17-year-old trans teen Jules Vaughn, Schafer—who, in 2016, was a plaintiff in the American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against North Carolina House Bill 2, which required people to use the restroom associated with the sex they were assigned at birth—brought her own experience to the groundbreaking role. This year Schafer cowrote and coproduced a special episode for Euphoria, emerging as a crucial voice in a new era of storytelling.

THE OLDEST OF four siblings, she was raised in North Carolina by her mother and pastor father, and transitioned in high school.

SHE SAYS SHE “fell into acting. It was not in my plan. I was in New York modeling and saving up to go to fashion school, then Euphoria came along and I decided to go for it.”

SHE WAS ENROLLED at London’s prestigious Central Saint Martins arts and design college when she landed the role. “We started filming in L.A. the same month I was supposed to start school. I don’t think I ever told them that I wasn’t coming.”

THE SERIES WAS nominated for six Emmys and won three; its visceral depiction of high school life garnered controversy and praise.

THE YOUNG CAST launched into a daunting level of exposure. “I wasn’t expecting to be this vulnerable with such a large group of people.”

SHE CALLS FAME “a wild thing that has taken some getting used to.”

THE IDEA FOR the episode she cowrote came when Jules—“whether or not she was a villain”—started trending on Twitter. “It pissed us off. We understand Jules’s narrative with a care that not everyone had experienced yet.”

SHE DESCRIBES EUPHORIA creator Sam Levinson, with whom she wrote the episode, as “my mentor, my L.A. mother, one of my best friends.”

WRITING AND PRODUCING the episode, which explores Jules’s memories through a therapy session, came naturally: “I loved the technicalities of imagining what the room is like, what she’s wearing.”

THE EPISODE TITLE, “F**k Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob,” is “a layered statement in that everyone has an amoebic or fluid feeling inside of them—it’s a matter of whether or not you’re tapped into acknowledging it.”

WHAT’S NEXT? “There are love stories—particularly for the people in my community, the ways that we move throughout the world—that are unique. That’s something I really want to make stuff about.”

Actor, model and LGBTQIA+ rights activist Hunter Schafer is best known for her role as Jules in Euphoria. Now, she is a global ambassador for Shiseido make-up and speaks to digital beauty editor, Hannah Coates, about everything from her secret to radiant skin to her go-to hairstyle.

On how she wakes up in the morning

I guess it depends on the day I’m going to have, but these days before work I usually just hop in the shower. I haven’t been wearing much make-up to work but on days when I’m feeling a little bit fancier, I do. I always put moisturiser on, that’s an everyday thing.

On the last thing she does before sleep

I turn off the TV because I realise if I keep the anime [cartoon] I’m watching on, I’m never actually going to fall asleep! I have to resign myself to the silence.

On her skincare routine

It’s the same thing as when I wake up. I don’t have a very complex routine. It’s mostly a shower at the end of the day, and then put moisturiser on. The last skincare product I finished was the Shiseido Ultimune Power Infusing Concentrate. You put it on before make-up and it helps everything do a better job of what it’s supposed to do.

On her secret to glowing skin

Sleep! Get as much sleep as possible, and if that doesn’t work, put some foundation on. The Shiseido Synchro Radiant Lifting Foundation has helped me look glowy on days when I have had less than the necessary minimum of four hours. Thankfully, most of the time I have a lovely make-up artist [apply it] who is much better at it than me, but when I don’t I usually just use my fingers and pat it across my face in a light layer. It’s pretty easy and so lightweight that it’s hard to not know what you’re doing.

On her lockdown beauty look

The past year it has been pretty minimal when it comes to colour and eyeshadow and products like that. But I’ve been embellishing a very basic, pared-back face with eyeliner. I draw these little illustrations on my face. When I feel I want something more exciting, I use little gems to give myself fake piercings, which is cool as well.

On her favourite way to wear her hair

I usually just throw it up in a little bun every single day. That’s kind of the extent of my abilities when styling my own hair. But once again, when I have help, it can go a lot further. I have fun and I really like wearing my hair up. It’s usually a challenge, every time I work with my hair stylist: what is a new way we can put it up? We’re continuing to push the boundary every time with how many different arrangements we can put my hair into.

On her favourite ‘Euphoria’ look

I think my favourite is probably the look in season one, episode seven, when Jules goes to the club. It’s something Doni [Doniella Davy, the make-up artist on the show] had a lot of fun creating. It’s rather simple. The bulk of the look is two little black dots and then a line, but we were very concerned about what angle the line was. I’m pretty sure we redrew it like five times before finding the right angle above her eyelid – just to emphasise and find the right mood. If it was slanted too far downwards she might look too angry, and we didn’t want her to look worried either. So the angle of the line was tough, but once we got it, I really loved that look.

On the success of ‘Euphoria’

[Its success] is something that still surprises me, just how far it’s reached. It’s hard to wrap my head around. As far as why it [appeals], we just really had fun with the make-up looks and weren’t too concerned about what was on trend. We weren’t intentionally doing “Euphoria make-up”. We were just doing our thing and having fun. Collectively, it assembled itself into an aesthetic that was applicable to a lot of people. But more than that, I think people could feel the fun and that gave them the room to have fun with their own make-up looks and be like, “Okay, well if people on TV are doing whatever the fuck they want with their make-up, we should too!” I hope that’s how it works – it was nice and joyful.

On make-up as a force for happiness

One of the fun things about quarantine is something I resisted at first but now am enjoying. It’s the teenage thing of feeling stuck in your bedroom and you’re not allowed to go anywhere or go out for the night or anything, but you’re going to put on a look and do your make-up just because you want to experiment and have fun. While we all miss going places and doing things, there is something kind of beautiful about playing with beauty and pushing your own boundaries – but not going anywhere, showing anyone. It’s doing make-up without the intention of putting it out into the world; it’s just for yourself. I think that’s how some of the best beauty looks are probably brought to life.

A runway model and an activist for LGBTQ2S+ rights, Hunter Schafer stepped into the spotlight playing Jules in the HBO hit Euphoria. This spring, she’s the new face of Shiseido, another role that suits her perfectly. We got to speak with the talented young star about beauty tips, her daily routine and which designers she’s crushing on.

On working with Doniella Davy, Euphoria’s on-set makeup artist

“I was already good at highlighting my features, but I wasn’t used to integrating 3-D elements into my makeup routine. Doniella and I had a lot of fun using glitter or incorporating pearls into Jules’ looks. She made me want to explore that realm a bit more.”

On Jules’ beauty looks in Euphoria

“I think this role has had as much influence on me as I’ve had on it. I started seeing makeup as another artistic medium and my face as a canvas. I even helped Doniella create certain looks, like the amazing cloud makeup Jules wears in the first season. As for Jules, she has encouraged me to push my own creativity by having fun with colour and going for more daring looks.”

On her new role as the face of Shiseido

“I feel blessed to be collaborating with a brand [whose artistic team’s] vision I connect with so much, from the images they use to the people they work with. This partnership also gives me access to a whole collection of incredibly-high-quality products, which makes exploring them even more exciting.”

On her favourite beauty products

“I swear by [Shiseido’s] Essential Energy Moisturizing Cream, which I apply right after getting out of the shower. For day-to-day life, the Synchro Skin Radiant Lifting Foundation is a must: It perfectly brightens skin and has a really natural finish. I also just started using the LipLiner Ink Duo Prime + Line, which has a clear hydrating base on one end and a coloured point on the other. It’s the ideal product for softly tinting lips. I’m also fascinated by the texture of the Pop PowderGel eyeshadows. The Zaa Zaa Navy shade, which is a deep navy blue with a slightly shimmery finish, is just gorgeous.”

On the pandemic’s effect on her beauty routine

“During lockdown, my state of mind has been transported to a time when I was younger, before I started going out with my friends and attending endless events. Back then, I wore makeup for fun, not because I had to, and I’ve started doing that again. I’m playing with cosmetics and colours for no particular reason. Maybe it’s because I’m a bit bored, but it feels good, and I think it’s a great reminder of how we should be using cosmetics!”

On the fashion designers she’s loving right now

“Though my fashion career is sort of on pause at the moment, it’s still an industry I’m incredibly passionate about. I was so happy that Hood by Air started posting on social media again and launched new products. I think it’s a legendary brand, and Shayne Oliver, the designer behind it, is totally iconic. Lately, I’m also really inspired by Mugler’s creations and I’ve been doing some digging into the Prada archives.”

Euphoria, one of the most anticipated shows of the year, promises to be the Kids of this generation. The HBO series follows a group of young suburbanites as they deal with sex, drugs, social media… you know, the everyday life of a teenager. Zendaya leads the cast as Rue, a young woman struggling with addiction, but there is someone else vying for the spotlight: Hunter Schafer, the trans model and activist turned actress who is making her screen debut with Euphoria. She plays Jules, the new girl in town who becomes fast friends with Rue, and who moves even faster with mysterious men she meets on Grindr.

To her peers, Jules and her “Sailor Moon chic” sense of style may be, in high school parlance, freakish or weird, but she also telegraphs a sense of experience beyond her years. Bewildered to learn that one of her summer school acquaintances is still a virgin, she quips, “Bitch, this isn’t the ’80s—you need to catch a dick!” (Later, in that same episode, there is a graphic motel sex scene between Jules and a much older married man.) Her identity as a trans girl is further explored later in the series, when she is given her own breakout episode told from her point of view. Schafer’s performance is a vast showcase of her natural talents as an actress. Expect to see plenty more of her in the future.

You moved to L.A. to film Euphoria. Are you sold on West Coast life?

If I like work, I’m a happy camper, and I love my job here. So I’m sold in that sense! I do find myself missing the energy of New York more and more often as my time away from the city progresses.

What do you miss about New York?

My friends and loved ones, the energy, how productive I was, the subway, and walking everywhere when I wasn’t on the subway.

How does working in television compare to working in the fashion world?

In the entertainment world, you can have more of a personality, and be yourself. You don’t have to look like a standard of beauty. You can have something provocative to say.

Did you take acting classes to prep for your role?

I went to an arts high school, and was surrounded by drama students who dreamed of working in the industry. I almost feel a sense of guilt, because I didn’t go to acting school. I think I got the role because I was perhaps the best contender for telling Jules’s story.

What is the best part about playing Jules?

Revisiting psychological landscapes I was in as a high schooler in order to fill her storyline with the correct motives. It’s been therapeutic to readdress that part of my life, using Jules as a pathway, and building a beautifully complicated relationship with Rue, Zendaya’s character. We’ve formed a really special bond over the past eight months that I’m so thankful for.

Do you identify with her experiences?

While Jules and I have some similar experiences, my life is not completely parallel to hers. What I do identify with is the driving force behind her decision-making throughout much of the show. Additionally, I identify with the way she begins to reframe her perspective as she becomes more aware of the roots of her motives.

You walked the Rick Owens show recently. Would you like to continue working in fashion? What kind of projects would entice you to do so?

Since it’s no longer my singular source of income, I’ve withdrawn from fashion spaces a bit. However, I still have a deep love for fashion and want to continue to work with designers and houses that inspire me—like Rick Owens, whose show I would no doubt walk in again if the opportunity arose. But long term, I would love to collaborate with my fashion idols more than anything else.

You mentioned loving fantasy. What kind of characters would you like to take on next? What does your fantasy role look like?

I would love to move into a fantasy realm of Hollywood! I think I could play a really solid femme-mythical-humanoid creature. Maybe something a little more scary-aggressive than Jules would be fun. And honestly, I’d live for a superhero moment. I grew up on comic books, so I feel like I owe that to my younger self.

Is film acting something you’re interested in?

It’s captured my attention 100 percent! I wasn’t looking to be an actor, but could not be more grateful to have (more or less) fallen into this art practice. It’s been life-changing as an artist and as a human being. Pretty sure I’m hooked, and have not yet found a reason to stop.

Has your move affected your style?