Alexa Demme said she was uncomfortable filming a montage of her Euphoria character Maddie having sex with multiple men.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Sunday, Demme addressed the highly sexualized scenes and storylines on the HBO series. The 35-year-old actress said the scenes in Season 1 where Maddie cheats on her boyfriend Nate (played by Jacob Elordi) with multiple men, including a stockbroker and a roller rink employee, were uncomfortable to film.
“I’m not saying I don’t like sex. I think sex can be portrayed beautifully and I know this show is about the life of a teenage girl,” she clarified. “But once I did it, I realized, ‘Okay, I don’t like this feeling.'”
“So I said something and people were sympathetic and I didn’t do that anymore,” she continued.
Demy admitted that she felt she had to be willing to do a lot of nudity and sex scenes to get the role of Maddie.
“I thought if I said no, I wouldn’t get the role,” she recalls. “Not because someone told me that, but because I was young and didn’t know.”
But Demme said the show’s writer and creator, Sam Levinson, listened to her concerns and that despite the long hours, she enjoyed her time on set.
She went through some personal struggles after filming Season 2 of Euphoria, and she blamed herself for it.
“I didn’t realize how strict I was and how seriously I took everything,” she explained.
“A lot happened, things changed within and around me, and there was a lot of cleansing,” she added of the tumultuous period in her life.
As the third season finale of Euphoria aired on HBO on Sunday, Sidney Sweeney was mocked by critics for her character Cassie’s risqué storyline this season. Sweeney, 28, posted behind-the-scenes photos from the shoot, including a near-nude shot.
“It’s… called acting,” she sharply captioned her post.
Sweeney’s character joined OnlyFans this season and became a hot topic among viewers for several explicit scenes, including an obscene sex scene with the movie star, played by Richard Gere’s son Homer Gere.
Ms. Levinson appeared on Monday’s episode of the New York Times podcast “Popcast” and said that even though Mr. Sweeney gave her the option not to pose nude, he actually agreed to bare all during the controversial scene.
Levinson said Sweeney responded, “Are you kidding me? I’m an OnlyFans model. Are you saying I’m going to wear a skirt?”
