Sydney Sweeney has discussed what it was like for her family to watch Euphoriafor the first time.
In the provocative HBO show, which airs on Sky Atlantic in the UK, Sweeney often appears topless in character as Cassie, who has a lot of sex scenes.
During a preview clip for a new episode of the NBC show Sunday Today with Willie Geist, the star said her mother knew what to expect of her role in the series from Sam Levinson.
“My mom visited me on set at the time, so she like knew the story and I talked to her a lot about it – my dad didn’t,” Sweeney said. “I didn’t prepare my dad at all.”
Sweeney said she wasn’t sure how to bring up Euphoria’s explicit content to her father in conversation. “When I talk to my dad, it’s usually not about work,” she said. “We talk, like, father-daughter conversations.”
The actor’s father ended up deciding to watch the drama anyway “without telling me, with his parents”, said Sweeney, explaining: “My dad and my grandpa turned it off and walked out.
“But my grandma… she’s a big supporter of mine. She’s a big fan of mine. Actually, I bring her, usually, all over the world to my different sets and I make her an extra.”
Euphoria, which follows a group of high school students navigating a world of drugs, sex and violence, is returning for a third season, with a launch date yet to be announced. Levinson’s other new show, The Idol, arrives on Sky Atlantic on Monday.
In March, Rolling Stone published an exposé featuring anonymous interviews with those working on The Idol, who alleged that its producers, Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd) and Levinson, had taken the show “disgustingly off the rails” to create a drama “about a man who gets to abuse this woman and she loves it”.
Sweeney is currently promoting her new film Reality, in which she stars as Reality Winner, the US intelligence leaker who blew the lid on Russian interference in the 2016 American election.
Read The Independent’s interview with playwright and filmmaker Tina Satter, who has made her directorial debut with a movie drama based on Winner’s arrest, here.
