As we anxiously await the return of Euphoria—the third season of the hit HBO series is slated for a 2025 release—we’re looking back to one of the show’s most infamous scenes thanks to Cassie Howard, er, Sydney Sweeney.
Fans of the show are probably still thinking about the scene from season two where a very overserved Cassie cries—and pukes—in a hot tub. Cassie, if you’ll remember, betrayed her best friend Maddy Perez (played by Alexa Demie) by secretly sleeping with Maddy’s on-again-off-again boyfriend Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi). Cassie is forced to watch the seemingly on-again Maddy and Nate interact together, so she turns to booze; as Maddy and Nate argue, drama goes down in the hot tub.
Speaking to Sean Evans on a recent episode of First We Feast’s “Hot Ones” (and per USA Today), Sweeney said that the scene was “a lot of work,” adding that director Sam Levinson “just wanted vomit everywhere, so they had to get a pump,” she said. “And they had this pipe that they just taped and hid on my body.”
Sweeney said production edited the scene using CGI (computer-generated imagery) to remove the pipe from her neck, “and then there was a horse bit that I had to put in my mouth,” she said. (A horse bit?) “And so, during that scene, they’re filling my mouth with throwup.”
(Not sure of a classier way to phrase this, but) When it was time for Cassie to vomit, “Then I opened my mouth, and it just starts shooting out my mouth,” Sweeney said. “And it was the most disgusting thing I ever experienced.”
Sweeney revealed that she has an acting technique of writing journals as each of her characters—from not just Euphoria but also The White Lotus, The Handmaid’s Tale, and her upcoming role in Marvel’s Madame Web. But it’s Cassie, Sweeney said, that had the most potential as a “personal memoir.”
“Cassie’s book is really, really cool,” she said. “It’s the most developed ‘cause I’ve had so much time with her. I have two seasons of her, so she’s grown so much. And I was able to have season one and season two and just develop this book, so it’s really cool to see how it changes.”
Wonder what season three will bring. Hopefully less, well, vomit?
