The Euphoria cast is too famous for Season 3 to happen now

The Euphoria cast has reached such a level of fame that Sam Levinson will have to drag them back kicking and screaming for Season 3.

Usually, your gorgeous cast of up-and-comers going stratospheric is a good thing. Not always, though, as Euphoria has learned. Previously, Euphoria Season 3 was slated for 2025. Still, even that felt like a desperate pipe dream, as its biggest stars — Zendaya, Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, and Hunter Schafer — caught fire.

HBO claimed Euphoria has not been canceled, it has just been delayed while the actors “pursue other opportunities”. But we all speak Hollywood (Remember when One Direction went on a ‘break’?) so we know what that means.

Season 3 is as likely to happen as a cultural reappraisal for The Idol is. So, let’s break down the careers of the Euphoria cast to crystallize why they’ve taken off, and how it may impact the TV show moving forward.

Contents:

• Zendaya as Rue Bennett
• Jacob Elordi as Nate Jacobs
• Sydney Sweeney as Cassie Howard
• Hunter Schafer as Jules Vaughn
• Maude Apatow as Lexi Howard
• Alexa Demie as Maddy Perez

Zendaya as Rue Bennett

As the troubled main character, Rue, Zendaya is the heart of the Euphoria cast. Rue struggles with drug addiction, which makes her relationships a series of extreme highs and lows.

Euphoria was far from Zendaya’s first role. She was a Disney Channel staple, but Euphoria was the role that cemented her in Gen Z’s cultural consciousness. Her face, lit by deep purples and blues as she wanders through house parties, became the show’s aesthetic foundation.

She continued to pursue more adult roles with Malcolm and Marie — a black-and-white talky almost everyone loathed — while raising her profile in some of the MCU’s most lucrative projects as MJ in Spider-Man. Dune 2 just made huge waves, and Challengers has been building hype steadily on social media for months. She’s harder to pin down than a tail on a donkey.

Jacob Elordi as Nate Jacobs

Jacob Elordi’s Nate Jacobs was society’s most pressing ruminations on masculinity personified. Rage, shame, misogyny, and barbells compacted into a supernova only someone as tall as Elordi could contain. Nate was an infuriating character, and Elordi played him to perfection.

With the ability to play that archetype to the letter while seemingly being a charming, easy-going fellow with great Aussie humor in real life, he was quickly honed in on. Most notably for Priscilla. Director Sofia Coppola has a habit of zooming in on talent with an air of gentle prestige and untapped potential, so that casting immediately set a tone that paved the way for the likes of Saltburn.

He started his film career in The Kissing Booth movies, but Elordi has a bright future ahead of him.

Sydney Sweeney as Cassie Howard

Sydney Sweeney’s extremely messy Cassie Howard has been the subject of much controversy — over her actions, the way she’s framed, and much more — but ultimately is a ‘daddy issues’ character that Sweeney imbued with a manic vibe. That reached a crescendo in Season 2 when she had an affair with Nate, her best friend’s on-and-off-again boyfriend. Cassie is either a subversive feminist character or the disastrous polar opposite of one, depending on who you ask.

Sweeney didn’t take flight immediately like some others did. She was mostly a hit on social media while filming the likes of The White Lotus Season 1 and the queer drama Clementine. Those were two projects where she leaned heavily into an airy, weaponized weirdness, playing against type.

Sweeney has been a slow-burn but has recently been in the new horror film Immaculate and the charming garbage fire that was Madame Web. Sweeney has an explorative quality to her and isn’t afraid to be a little silly, and her star being on the rise is evidence that’s working for her.

Hunter Schafer as Jules Vaughn

Jules Vaughn was a crucial character, in and outside the show’s narrative, and Hunter Schafer brought an authentic and unsanded edge to her that made viewers and Rue fall in love. Chaotic yet containing an almost angelic kindness, Jules got much more depth in Season 2 when the series explored her childhood pre-transition.

The palpable coolness of Hunter Schafer has been on a steady incline. With Euphoria on pause, 2023 opened up new doors for her.

Video game auteur Hideo Kojima cast her in his upcoming horror game OD with a slew of other great names. She delivered on-screen and on the red carpets with her fashion for The Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, where she played Tigris Snow. 2024’s Cuckoo marks her first big leading role in a feature film, where she’ll front a cast that includes Dan Stevens and Jessica Henwick.

Maude Apatow as Lexi Howard

Among Euphoria’s chaotic cast of characters is the singular, soothing Lexi Howard, a quiet theatre kid who stays out of trouble for the most part. As Cassie’s younger sister, she’s often picking up the pieces of her breakdowns while trying to support Rue, who is in and out of her life depending on her sobriety. She got a bit more to play with in Season 2, literally, when she wrote a thinly-veiled play about the kids at school and how she perceives them as an outsider.

Maude Apatow… is an Apatow; she’s the daughter of producer, screenwriter, and director Judd Apatow. So, it’s fair to say she’s likely to find her feet in Hollywood regardless of Euphoria’s status. Lexi was her breakout role, however.

Before that, she began acting at seven years old with a minor part in her father’s comedy movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin. She was also in This Is 40, Knocked Up, Funny People, and The King of Staten Island.

Alexa Demie as Maddy Perez

Maddy is ‘that girl’. Popular, dating the school’s jock, and frequently wearing outfits that are on the cutting edge of eccentric modern fashion. In Season 1, she was a (mostly) nice cheerleader and Cassie’s best friend. Like everyone else, she unraveled in Season 2 when she learned Cassie had a secret relationship with Nate, who was the boyfriend from hell. Quick to throw firsts, it was the season’s most memed blow-up.

Also a singer, Demie was acting before the TV series. She made her debut in Brigsby Bear in 2017 before appearing in Mid90s in 2018. She has also been in several music videos. Demie has lived an interesting life, to put it mildly.

She started a line of bedazzled sunglasses after creating them as a hobby in high school, and the glittery specs would be worn on famous faces like Jennifer Lopez and Nicki Minaj. The line was ill-fated, but Demie also worked as a costume designer for a Minaj music video and considered becoming a fashion designer before diving headfirst into acting. Industrious and talented in several creative areas, Demie probably has a lot of options in front of her following Euphoria.

That’s it for the main players in the Euphoria cast. Unfortunately, we just can’t see the likes of Zendaya, Sweeney, Elordi, and Schafer having time to shoot another season. But, who knows, maybe they’ll want to tie up the loose ends of the show that gave them their big break.

Whatever happens, Euphoria has launched several careers. Until we know for sure, find out what we know about Dune 3 and Spider-Man 4 for more from Zendaya. We can also tell you whether there’ll be a Songbirds and Snakes sequel, teach you about the Saltburn TikTok trend, and show you how to watch Immaculate.