This weekend saw the ending of Sam Levinson‘s popular show “Euphoria,” which helped launch a multitude of the young cast (Zendaya aside, as she had a bunch of credits under her belt beforehand) seeing folks like Sydney Sweeney (“The Housemaid”), recent Oscar-nominee Jacob Elordi (“Frankenstein,” “The Dog Stars”), Hunter Schafer (“Blade Runner 2099”), Barbie Ferreira (“Mile End Kicks”), Alexa Demie (“Waves”) and Maude Apatow (“Oh.What.Fun”) becoming the faces of young Hollywood as their futures look as bright as the sun. Levinson is making the press rounds with his exit interviews (HBO/Levinson confirmed there won’t be a Season 4) and is talking about how he decided to go with a Western homage for the final season and reflecting on his time on the show, during a chat on IndieWire’s podcast Filmmaker Toolkit.
“They arrive on set with a certain comfort and security knowing that I’m not going to allow them to fail, which I think gives them a baseline of confidence,” Levinson said of his professional cast. “On top of that, I try to work the performance until it’s better than I imagined in my head. I studied method acting for four years. I know all of these characters’ backstories, everything that has happened, so in my head, I’ve got a pretty good sense of what a great performance is. But I will keep going, and keep working it until it surpasses that…Performance trumps everything. It trumps logic, it trumps tone. So that’s the baseline, and in terms of the irony and humor, I think it’s always important for it never to feel cartoonish or forced. If a scene is funny, it needs to come from an authentic place emotionally. As soon as they become cartoon characters, that’s when I tune out.”
When it comes to backlash or critical digs, the show faced a lot of that, Levinson suggests it didn’t really impact on how he was going to impact his vision for the show. “I know the noise it creates, but it doesn’t influence my creative process. I think it’s really important to make sure that the intentions of the show come from a pure and honest place. I know that people are attached to certain characters. I know that, in general, people want the characters to live happy, wonderful lives because they love them. But that’s not true to who these characters are. These are characters that make poor decisions.”
Hard not to grasp the simplistic morality of the show (drugs are bad and Levinson has dedicated the show to late cast member Angus Cloud, who died in connection to drug use), but at the same time, the controversy of Season 3 came from sex workers and OnlyFans models taking issue with the misrepresentation of sex work on the platform, as explored with Sweeney’s Cassie (age-play being explicitly banned along with other fetish elements exploited for show for shockvalue).
Sam Peckinpah and Akira Kurosawa‘s works have an impact on Season 3’s Western influence (alongside ), and where the idea for Rue’s ending (don’t worry, spoiler-free) came from. “I couldn’t wait to shoot that sequence…We had somewhere around 10 or 12 actors in this space, and we needed to understand the geography of it and tease it out so the stakes could cumulate.” He also took direct inspiration from the 1959 Western film “Day of the Outlaw,” helmed by André De Toth, and “built the set piece around a bottle rolling on a bar.”
“I knew that’s what I needed to build toward, but in terms of the planning, it’s Marcell [his cinematographer] and I sitting down and writing a loose shot list and doing a light rehearsal.”
Another aspect talked up by Levinson is that he wanted very much to emulate what Steven Spielberg did with projects like “Jurassic Park,” by showing more than telling. “I think of how my son, who’s nine years old, watches a movie…I took him to the Hollywood Bowl to see ‘Jurassic Park’ with John Williams conducting a live orchestra, and it’s just fascinating to watch him experience that movie, because Spielberg is so good at allowing every shot to answer a question and pose a new question. My son would turn to me: ‘What’s going to happen?’ And the next shot answers it.”
While we don’t know exactly what is next for Levinson, he seems grateful for the opportunity to make the show and also getting a bit of a break to spend more time with his family (we’ll see how long that lasts). “I’m deeply proud of the work we did, and I’m also really proud of all of our departments and all of our actors. There’s an enormous amount of gratitude that we were able to even tell this story. It wasn’t easy. There were quite a few obstacles, but I think we did something pretty radical and thrilling. Anytime you come off of a long shoot, your adrenaline starts to dip. But I’m happy with the work, and I get to spend a little more time with my wife and kids, and that’s what matters at the end of the day. I’m excited to watch some Marx Brothers and Jackie Chan with them and start to dream about the possibilities of what’s next.”
All episodes of Season 3 of “Euphoria” can be viewed on HBO/HBO Max, and you can listen to that full exchange with Levinson below.
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