Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 5 of HBO’s Euphoria.On the HBO original seriesEuphoria, Rue (Zendaya) has been on a downward spiral that’s even worse than those closest to her have feared. And while it’s easy to understand why the people in her life that love her would want to help her, when an addict is out of control, it’s up to them to pull themselves out and find a new path, and often things get much uglier and much darker before ever finding the light again.
During this interview with Collider, which you can both watch and read, co-starsStorm Reid(who plays Rue’s younger sister, Gia),Nika King(who plays the mother torn between being there for Gia while also still trying to get through to Rue) andColman Domingo(who plays Ali, an addict who’s navigating his own recovery process) talked about shooting an intervention that lasted for an entire episode, the levels of physical and emotional exhaustion that came out of the experience, how you prepare to take on that material, and getting to have just a moment of happiness.
Collider: This is quite a season. Storm and Nika, you guys don’t have an intervention moment or scene this season, you have a whole intervention episode. Incredible work from both of you on that, but it’s exhausting, mentally and emotionally, to watch. What was it like to shoot what is essentially an episode-long intervention?
NIKA KING: You just mentioned emotionally exhausting. You’re like, “Okay, I have my lines. I know what I’m going to do,” but after a while, your body is affected in a way that I wasn’t ready for. There’s a lot of running after each other, and tackling and holding. You forget there’s emotional and physical exhaustion. I was happy when it was over. I was just like, “Woo! Okay.” I had to go home. I had to decompress. It was a lot, but I think it’s what was needed for this season. Rue’s character needs to understand that it’s not just her younger sister, Gia, being affected. It’s her whole sphere of people in her life, her tribe, and to see everyone come together and really root for her to get better, I don’t know if that’s gonna get her clean, but I think that’s definitely something that the audience need to know. She does have support. Everywhere she turns, there’s someone supporting her.
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Storm, what was that like for you? Do you prepare for something like that? Do you try not to prepare too much? How do you work that out, so that you get through that?
REID: My process with anything, but specifically Euphoria and being Gia, is to prepare but not over-prepare. Things always are changing and there are always new ideas and opportunities in which we find something that really works or that is really brilliant, in the moment. Everything Miss Nika said [is true]. It’s exhausting, doing those scenes. It’s literally physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausting. I feel so privileged and so blessed to be able to work on scenes like that when I’m doing them because what I want, as an actress, is to be challenged, to be pushed, to feel like I just I don’t wanna do this anymore, and like I can’t do it anymore. I feel like that’s where my best work comes from. But I would say it’s hard. I would go back to campus and go back to school after I was done filming those scenes, and I would just be done for. It paid off, but it was hard.
Colman, things get a bit rocky between your character and Rue this season, which is to be expected when you’re dealing with an addict. What was it like for you to explore that portion of their dynamic and to also have her come to a realization that she needs to apologize for her behavior?
DOMINGO: You know what? As I think about it now, in the playing of it, it was very interesting to me that even Ali is shocked at the level of how horrible an addict can be. To shock someone like Ali, who’s been it, who’s done it, and who’s done plenty of it, yet again, by someone who you made a bond with, you’ve poured your heart open to each other, you were there for each other in the “Trouble Don’t Last Always” episode, you really unpack so much and have this bond, so to break that bond, it just really shocked him. That’s why we made the choice that Ali just grabs because of his impulse, and then he’s shocked at what she brought up in him as well. She knew how to push his buttons.
It keeps letting you know how unsettling and how unstable the disease of addiction is and how people will do anything to have things go their way. The whole season, she’s manipulative as hell. She’s using everything. At some point, from my perspective, I think she uses the death of her father to get sympathy. She’ll even use that. I think Ali, understanding the disease of addiction, and his whole purpose and engine in the scene, is to be that north star to say, “I’ve been through it. I’ve been through the worst. I’ve done it.” And possibly, he can offer up some light that things can get better, and you can do something different with your family. I don’t know if he’s saying to do it, he’s just offering up what he knows. It is wild, the arc they have. I think it’s an arc that is trying to be built on honesty and faith, but then when the disease of addiction is in the middle of it, it’s between two addicts, so he understands it. He can find some grace, and he can find a moment of redemption because he was like that in the world too.
That’s why I really love the moments between them when they have this dinner, and they’ve all come together, and they share moments, preparing the food and just sitting there. It’s really the only time that there isn’t chaos happening this season. What was it like to have those moments in contrast to doing something like the intervention episode, and then have a moment just at the dinner table?
KING: That’s the happier side of Euphoria. That’s the real euphoria. Everyone’s around the table eating a meal, cracking jokes, being lighthearted, having fun. For us, or let me just speak for myself, those were some of the memories that I will always have, as an actor. It’s us literally being together at that table, joking, singing and having fun, but then in the scene, there’s definitely the undertone of the reality of what’s happening. It’s a little form of escapism. I think we’re allowed to escape, just for a moment, to make it feel like, “Wow, this is normal. This is the thing.”
DOMINGO: They came into the scene going, “I need some light. I need some fun and laughter.” Everybody was chatting, talking and laughing. Before the scene even started, we improved a little bit, just to warm it up, telling jokes and stories. Everyone was on it and just having fun. I personally think it was well-earned for these two and with Rue because I know that they went through hell, just the scene before. I was just happy to be in the room when they were laughing.
Euphoriaairs on Sunday nights on HBO and is available to stream at HBO Max.
