How Euphoria Taught Hunter Schafer to ‘Feel Everything’
The first-time actress opens up about her groundbreaking, life-changing role.
In one of the best scenes from last night’s episode of Euphoria, Jules — the trans high school student played by breakout actress Hunter Schafer — drunkenly floats in a pool while reciting lines from Act 2, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to her recovering drug addict girlfriend, Rue. Though Jules isn’t the type to drink in excess, everything she’s been forced to endure since moving to town only a few months ago — falling for a guy on a dating app who turned out to be her psychopathic classmate, Nate; being subsequently blackmailed by said classmate; then falling in love with Rue, only to crumble under the crippling pressure of shouldering her partner’s newfound sobriety — would be enough to drive anyone towards potential self-destruction. In that pool, as Jules slurs through lines about “summer’s ripening breath” and “a beauteous flower,” Schafer’s performance manages to balance the fabricated ecstasy of intoxication against the pain she’s so clearly trying to cover up. It beautifully answers the question of what does a girl suffering in silence look like when she finally lets loose? It’s spellbinding work. You’d never guess this was the 20-year-old actress’ first role.
Schafer was already a rising star before nabbing the part of Jules. After graduating high school in North Carolina — where she had already made a huge imprint as one of the teenage plaintiffs in the ACLU’s lawsuit against the infamous HB2 “bathroom bill” — Schafer became a major fixture on the modeling scene. She quickly signed with Elite Modeling Agency in New York, and was soon strutting down the catwalks of designers like Marc Jacobs, Miu Miu, and Rick Owens, while also appearing on the pages of W and Dazed and in campaigns for Vera Wang. A little over a year ago, the young artist was all set to immerse herself even further in the fashion world by studying design at London’s prestigious Central Saint Martins University. She only decided to put that goal aside when Euphoria came knocking.
Luckily, the decision was not made in vain. “This project has been one of the most fulfilling artistic experiences of my life,” Schafer told me over the phone last week. “I feel so proud of it and could not have asked for a better experience.” As Hunter enjoyed some time off before filming the show’s upcoming second season, the multi-hyphenate artist opened up about what initially drew her to Euphoria, why acting can be therapeutic, and how she prepared to film that terrifying lake scene with Nate (Jacob Elordi).
Euphoria is one of the first shows I’ve seen where a central trans character’s storyline isn’t actually focused on her transition. Was that part of your connection to the script?
When I got the script for the first four episodes and was able to see the arc, that’s when I got really excited about Jules. In episode four, we get her backstory and it’s sort of confirmed that, in a lot of ways, Jules’ transition has been resolved and it’s not at the forefront of her life anymore. While it may influence the way she moves throughout the world, she doesn’t even really talk about it. It’s nice because then you can begin to figure out how it all relates to the way she’s acting or some of the decisions that she’s making. I think that’s a lot more interesting as far as delving into her psyche. Also, the fact that we begin to see her move into some form of queerness as an alternative to straightness was another thing I was excited for as a queer trans person. I didn’t feel that I had really seen that before on TV. I was just so pumped. That’s something that I went through myself, figuring out how to move away from straightness as a trans person — that’s the part that really sold me, I think.
What was the biggest difference between acting and modeling?
Modeling did not feel as artistic as this job has felt, at all. In a lot of ways, the cool thing about modeling is that other people and artists I look up to are able to project their artistic visions onto me, and it was really exciting to be a muse in that way and carry out a vision. Playing Jules is similar in a way, because the director of Euphoria, Sam Levinson, created this character before I was ever a part of this project. But once I was attached to it, he really let me help build her. I was making mood boards for her and her outfits, talking to the makeup artist, and Sam and I were sharing our life stories and figuring out how they could fit together like puzzle pieces in order to fill her out properly. As far as collaboration goes, acting has been so fulfilling.
I’m also still doing visual art, which I felt was my main art practice before going into acting. In that sense, I think it’s just been figuring out how to channel the vibration that would go out through my hand and onto a piece of paper and dispersing that in my body through a character, through these lines I’m given. I use that to externalize my feelings in a completely different way.
