Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney has described how trolls started tagging her family members in nude pictures taken from her scenes in the Emmy-award winning drama.
Sweeney's character, Cassie, goes through a lot in Euphoria as she's forced to face abortion alone and has to deal with her nude photos being leaked and circulated around her school.
The show is fictional, but Sweeney found herself experiencing some of what her character went through in the show as screenshots of the nudes used in the scenes were circulated online by trolls.
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Internet users had gone to the effort of screenshotting grainy stills of the footage from the show and sharing them on Instagram, but it apparently wasn't enough for them to simply be out on the internet.
In an interview with GQ, Sweeney explained: "It got to the point where they were tagging my family. My cousins don’t need that. It’s completely disgusting and unfair."
The actor couldn't help but draw comparisons to her character's experiences on the show, saying: "You have a character that goes through the scrutiny of being a sexualised person at school and then an audience that does the same thing.”
In spite of these negative responses to the scenes, Sweeney has insisted she doesn't want to hide herself away.
"I think it’s ridiculous," she added. "I’m an artist, I play characters. It makes me want to play characters that p*ss people off more.”
Though her scenes on the show have caused her some issues, Sweeney praised the writer and director of Euphoria, Sam Levinson, for the way he created her character.
She commented: “I trust Sam so much with what he does with Cassie. It feels really good as an actor to be able to trust the filmmaker because it just changes the entire experience."
Sweeney has confirmed she is set to make a comeback as Cassie in the third season of Euphoria, and while little is known about the plot of the show, the actor does have some thoughts about where her storyline could go.
"There was a moment there when Cassie started learning how to manipulate Nate,” she explained.
“I think it would be fun to play into that power she learned she had.”
The third series of Euphoria is set to arrive in 2023, but in the meantime, Sweeney is also working on a number of other projects including Sony's Madame Web and a Barbarella reboot.
Topics: Film and TV, Celebrity
Emily Brown