Hbo euphoria series#

“I was repeatedly crushed over and over by the cruel cervix of my mother,” she says as a CGI clip of herself as a baby in utero plays onscreen. One was the opening shot, which in the final version begins with Zendaya’s character narrating her birth. According to Levinson and Zendaya, execs pushed back on two scenes. They reshot his parts in the pilot, including an intense sex scene with 21-year-old actress Sydney Sweeney, who says of the recasting, “Let’s just say I’m very glad that Algee is playing the character.”ĭespite HBO’s enthusiasm for authentic and edgy content, the network does have its limits. After a lengthy back-and-forth with producers, HBO stepped in and replaced Bradley with The Hate U Give‘s Algee Smith. Details surrounding his exit are fiercely guarded, but sources say Bradley was uncomfortable shooting scenes that weren’t in the original pilot script and suggested his character would experiment with homosexuality in future episodes. While shooting the pilot, actor Brian “Astro” Bradley, 22, a former X Factor contestant and rapper signed to Nas’ label, wanted out of the show. The risqué material was even too much for a principal castmember. The premium programmer’s mandate under new parent AT&T is to ramp up content to compete with streaming rivals that the network is doing so in the YA space is no surprise given the success of the genre on digital platforms, particularly Netflix. Amid the #MeToo movement and a re-evaluation of sexual mores and politics in the digital age, HBO is attempting to create buzz among a newer generation when so much of the 500-plus-show universe is lost on young people. The show arrives with business implications as well. Adds HBO programming president Casey Bloys: “We’re not trying to put out a Gossip Girl.“ “It’s a good insight into how hard it is to grow up in this time,” says castmember Maude Apatow, 21, who’s hoping her parents, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann, watch the Drake-produced series.

Hbo euphoria series#

It is for these and other reasons that former HBO chairman Richard Plepler would often tell people the series makes Netflix’s teen suicide drama 13 Reasons Why look like an after-school special. “There are going to be parents who are going to be totally fucking freaked out,” says Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, 34, son of director Barry Levinson, who wrote all eight episodes based on his own past struggles with addiction. In one episode alone, close to 30 penises flash onscreen. Though the sequence uses a prosthetic, it’s still likely to shock most audiences - as will a handful of other graphic scenes in the pilot, from a gut-wrenching drug overdose by star Zendaya, 22, to a sex scene between teens involving choking. Instead, it’s care of actor Eric Dane, who commits statutory rape with a 17-year-old trans girl (newcomer Hunter Schafer, 20). The male genitalia in the pilot is not attached to any of the largely 20-something cast.