

According to Levinson and Zendaya, execs pushed back on two scenes. They reshot his parts in the pilot, including an intense sex scene with 21-year-old actress Sydney Sweeney, who says of the recasting, “Let’s just say I’m very glad that Algee is playing the character.”ĭespite HBO’s enthusiasm for authentic and edgy content, the network does have its limits. After a lengthy back-and-forth with producers, HBO stepped in and replaced Bradley with The Hate U Give‘s Algee Smith.

Details surrounding his exit are fiercely guarded, but sources say Bradley was uncomfortable shooting scenes that weren’t in the original pilot script and suggested his character would experiment with homosexuality in future episodes. While shooting the pilot, actor Brian “Astro” Bradley, 22, a former X Factor contestant and rapper signed to Nas’ label, wanted out of the show. The risqué material was even too much for a principal castmember.
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“It may seem boundary-pushing, and the idea of putting them on TV may be, but somebody lived them.” Still, “It’s not sensational to be sensational,” says Bloys, noting that the point of the show is to expose an adult audience to the challenges of growing up in 2019, and that many of the scenes come directly from Levinson’s life. While Euphoria isn’t likely to fill any Game of Thrones-size voids at the network - as even one HBO insider admits of the show, “It’s not for everyone” - it’ll inevitably get people talking. The premium programmer’s mandate under new parent AT&T is to ramp up content to compete with streaming rivals that the network is doing so in the YA space is no surprise given the success of the genre on digital platforms, particularly Netflix. Amid the #MeToo movement and a re-evaluation of sexual mores and politics in the digital age, HBO is attempting to create buzz among a newer generation when so much of the 500-plus-show universe is lost on young people. The show arrives with business implications as well. Adds HBO programming president Casey Bloys: “We’re not trying to put out a Gossip Girl.“ “It’s a good insight into how hard it is to grow up in this time,” says castmember Maude Apatow, 21, who’s hoping her parents, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann, watch the Drake-produced series.
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It is for these and other reasons that former HBO chairman Richard Plepler would often tell people the series makes Netflix’s teen suicide drama 13 Reasons Why look like an after-school special. “There are going to be parents who are going to be totally fucking freaked out,” says Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, 34, son of director Barry Levinson, who wrote all eight episodes based on his own past struggles with addiction. In one episode alone, close to 30 penises flash onscreen. Though the sequence uses a prosthetic, it’s still likely to shock most audiences - as will a handful of other graphic scenes in the pilot, from a gut-wrenching drug overdose by star Zendaya, 22, to a sex scene between teens involving choking. Instead, it’s care of actor Eric Dane, who commits statutory rape with a 17-year-old trans girl (newcomer Hunter Schafer, 20). I remember River Phoenix saying in an interview that he tried to lie as much as possible, and I just took that approach ever since.The male genitalia in the pilot is not attached to any of the largely 20-something cast. On telling the truth about his childhood during interviews: "I lied about it so much, I don't know what the truth is.

But if someone's mom made a cookie and handed it to me, I'd probably take a bite, or if I'm in Alaska and there's wild salmon out of the river, I'd probably eat it." On being vegan: "I'm actually a cheagan-a cheating vegan. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, amidst innocent jokes and animal analogies ("I'm a bit like a lizard" and "I have a lot of Neanderthal in me"), the Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman and Suicide Squad lead shed an honest light on his enigmatic persona.īelow, read through his best (and most eccentric) soundbites on his experience with drugs as a teen, his childhood and succeeding Heath Ledger's inimitable performance as the Joker. How can one man front a cult favorite alt-rock band and be an Oscar-winning actor at the same time, all while handsomely looking like a 28-year-old at the unbelievable age of 44? (Yes, Jared Leto is 44 years old.
