Pitching Rue’s death in the series finale of “Euphoria” to Zendaya was not an easy conversation, according to the show’s creator Sam Levinson.
“When I pitched her this season and the ending, it was a very emotional reaction,” Levinson said in an interview with Variety‘s Daniel D’Addario for the “Half Hour With” series. “We love the character Rue. [Zendaya] has done such an incredible job bringing this character to life … in the hands of a lesser actor, the character wouldn’t be as charming and lovable and humorous.”
“So it was a tough discussion,” Levinson added. “Even through shooting, it sort of weighed on both of us. At the end of the day, she understood what I was doing, and it felt like the right way to honor Angus, someone whom we loved dearly and really rooted for and saw the best in.”
Levinson, who himself struggled with drug addiction, has spoken about how the narrative arc of Season 3 was largely inspired by Angus Cloud, who played Fezco in the first two seasons and died at age 25 of a drug overdose. In the final episode of “Euphoria,” Rue — after repeated attempts to stay clean — takes painkillers given to her by her boss Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). It turns out the pills are laced with fentanyl, and after a dream sequence where Rue returns home and reunites with her mom, it’s revealed that the protagonist died in her sleep on her mentor Ali’s (Colman Domingo) couch.
“When when it came time to shoot the scene [where Rue is found dead], we also had Colman Domingo there, who’s been one of my closest collaborators for over a decade and a grounding force in Zendaya’s life as well,” Levinson said. “That kind of camaraderie really helped this sequence feel authentic and meaningful. We’ve been doing this for eight [or] nine years together, so it was a beautiful couple of days as we were shooting those scenes, because we knew how audiences would respond to it.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Levinson revealed his original idea for the opening sequence of “Euphoria” Season 3, which sees Rue attempting to drive a car over the U.S.-Mexico border, her beat-up Jeep teetering on the fence.
“Originally, she was supposed to be swimming across the Rio Grande,” Levinson said. “I had written that, but early on we did a scout at the Drug Enforcement Administration offices in Los Angeles, and they have all these photos on the walls of their best drug busts. … I saw this one photo of a Jeep stuck on top of a border wall, and I said, ‘Well what happened?’ The DEA guy says, ‘Oh, you know, some moron tried to drive a car over the border,’ and I thought, ‘That’s the kind of moronic thing Rue would do.’ And so we ended up recreating it.”
Watch the full conversation between Levinson and D’Addario below.
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