Sydney Sweeney Euphoria
Pietro S. D’Aprano/Getty Images for Prada

Imagine if Sydney Sweeney wasn’t in Euphoria? Well, that was almost the case!

“A casting director told me once that I will never be on a TV show,” the blonde beauty said, adding that she apparently didn’t have the “right look”. “Now, I’m on some of the biggest TV shows in the world.”

“I had someone tell me once, it was [someone’s] mother, actually…” she added about another encounter. “I’m a very active person. I get hurt. I get bruises. I get cuts. I think I came back from laser tag, and I had rug burns all over my legs because I got really into it. And she sat me up on the counter and told me that no boy will ever love me if I have marks on my body. I told her, ‘Well, I guess I’m just gonna have to love myself.‘”

The rising star was always interested in pursuing a career in Hollywood, but it wasn’t always easy, especially since she was dealing with some family issues.

Sydney Sweeney Euphoria
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for HBO

“I always thought that when I turned 18, I’d have made enough money to buy my parent’s old house back,” she recalled. “And somehow by buying that house back, it would have [brought] my parents back together.”

Now, Sweeney — who has her own TikTok account which is dedicated to her fixing cars — remains humble and looks back on her unconventional upbringing. (Sweeney, her mom, dad and brother had to stay at a Holiday Inn in Burbank, Calif., for nine months as they couldn’t afford their rent at the time.

“I’ve experienced the way that I don’t want to live, and I don’t want my future children to have to go through the same struggles, or see me stress in the same way that my parents did,” she stated. “Nor do I want to see my family have to stress the way that we used to. I definitely try to control as much as possible, and then have everything put together to stay secure. I want to show younger generations that you can do anything, even if you don’t have the means or the connections.”