Words by Hattie Brett
We’re still a month away from the third and final season of Euphoria hitting our screens in April, but the internet is awash with theories about how the cult TV show will end, from the tantalizing (Nate will leave Cassie and reunite with Jules) to the tragic (Rue will die). If fans are desperate to discover the fate of the East Highland High alumni, for cast members the finale will be bittersweet. “I can’t even think about it. It will make me too sad,” Maude Apatow says, shaking her head almost in disbelief that the series she’s been working on for the past eight years is wrapping up. “I’ve been working on Euphoria since I was 20, and I’m about to be 28. We’ve learned so much and we’ve been through so much together, so coming back this last season has been very emotional.”
It’s been four years since the cast were last on set together. Naturally, that has necessitated a time jump in the Euphoria narrative. When we meet, Apatow is on a brief break from filming to attend Milan Fashion Week with Max Mara and won’t be drawn on details of the new Euphoria plot, but she does say she believes they’re “finishing strong.”
What we do know is that season 3 picks up with the characters post education, as they start their working lives as young adults, trying to figure out their paths in life. The show’s creator, Sam Levinson, has talked about wanting to open up the Euphoria universe — so we get to see these characters beyond the microcosm of high school and making their way out in the real world.
The cast is like family. We’ve been through high highs and low lows.
Apatow’s character, Lexi — who was arguably always the most sane, stable, and likeable of the show’s troubled teens — has channeled her talent for script writing (who can forget that school play scene?) into a career in entertainment, now an assistant to a bigwig Hollywood show runner, who thrillingly will be played by Sharon Stone.
For Apatow, though, it was returning to work with the original cast members, now some of Hollywood’s biggest Gen Z power players — Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, Jacob Elordi, Hunter Schafer — that had the greatest appeal. “We’re like family at this point,” she says. “We’ve spent an enormous amount of time together, and we’ve gone through high highs and low lows and through all of that I think we have each other. That’s been nice because it’s a huge sort of experience and we’re all going through it together and we can talk to each other about it. It’s amazing and it’s also stressful.”
She says her fondest memories of filming are of the scenes when the cast are all together. “Like the New Year’s Eve party in season 1 or the carnival, where we all spent two weeks working all night together, sitting around and chatting.” As for who’s the goofiest on set? “Hunter makes me laugh really hard. We’re always laughing together.” Away from the set, there’s a group chat — make that multiple breakout group chats — but Apatow admits, “If anything I’m the most active.”
Apatow says it was during the Covid pandemic that she suddenly realized just how much the series had taken off, when her TikTok timeline was filled with people posting dances to the Euphoria soundtrack. The show, which never shied away from depicting the darker side of adolescence — sex, drugs, and toxic bullying — precipitated a thousand think pieces about teen culture today. It also launched the careers of its young cast, who are now fully-fledged A-list names, top of every Hollywood casting director’s wish list. “When we went back to film season two, it felt like a different beast. I was like, ‘Oh shit, this is crazy.’”
What made Euphoria such a success, Apatow believes, is its confidence. “Even though a lot of it is very dramatized and heightened, it feels very truthful. It never was trying to be something else. It was always its own thing. It wasn’t trying to be young or modern or hip. … It wasn’t chasing a trend. It was setting a trend. I think there’s no hesitation about casting family. My mom is amazing at doing very grounded comedy, and that’s exactly what the part called for. It wasn’t really a question. I think she’s the best at what she does. And she was perfect.”
Now, Apatow is taking what she’s learned from Euphoria and applying it to her own directorial debut — indie-film Poetic License. The rom-com, about a therapist and soon-to-be empty-nester mom who becomes the object of affection for two male college students, got rave reviews at the Toronto Film Festival. It also stars Apatow’s real-life mom, actress Leslie Mann. “When I read the script, one of the big storylines is about a mother and daughter and there were parts of it that really reminded me of us,’ Apatow says.
It’s clear that Apatow doesn’t intend to shy away from the fact she grew up in one of Hollywood’s most successful comedic families. She’s starred alongside Mann in Knocked Up and its semi-sequel This Is 40 — just two of dad Judd Apatow’s very funny, very real films. But what was it like directing her mom? “My mom is my best friend. Knowing her so intimately, knowing her emotional levels, I know what she’s capable of. So I was able to be very clear what I wanted her to do in each moment,” she recalls. “But she’s so truthful and present as an actress so, most of the time, I didn’t really need to do anything because she’s already got it.”
Staying present is one of the most valuable pieces of advice Mann has given her. “She’d always say that to me but, when I was directing her, I saw her doing it and when I went back to Euphoria to shoot this season, I tried to stay really present.”
Now, as the worthy recipient of the Max Mara Face of the Future award — one bestowed on Emily Blunt, Gemma Chan, and Zoe Saldaña in previous years and seen as a bellwether of trailblazing talent — Apatow finds she’s the one being asked how to break through in Hollywood. You get the sense it’s a position she’s not quite familiar with yet. “It’s crazy!” she laughs. “I look up to so many different women in film and female filmmakers, and I feel very honored to be seen as one of them.”
Apatow says she copes with the pressure by concentrating on the work itself — not the public reaction. “When you release something into the world, it’s no longer yours and you have zero control over how people will respond to it and what they think of it,” she says. “When I was in film school, I remember writing papers about movies and making stuff up that I don’t think the filmmaker intended. But you can find meaning in most art that the people themselves didn’t intend.”
All of which is partly why Apatow may be intrigued to read the fan theories around the end of Euphoria. “They make me laugh. I don’t think any of them are real, but I respect it. If people think that…” Just note that the best ones may well end up on the Euphoria cast group chat.
Words by Hattie Brett, Photography by Cully Wright, Styling by J. Errico
Hair by Cherilyn Farris, Hair assistance by Jamie Malone, Make-up by Shelby Smith;
Shoot production by Jenn Kim and Ryan Holt at Kindly Productions, Production assistance by Mackenzie Paulson, Lac, John Chevalier, Photographer’s assistance by James Ross Mankoff
