Sydney Sweeney on if ‘Euphoria’ Made Her Feel Pigeonholed

Since Euphoria premiered in 2019, Sydney Sweeney’s popularity has substantially increased. While the actor had built a steady resume prior to playing Cassie Howard, portraying the blonde cheerleader made her a bonafide celebrity. This was especially true after her character’s disastrous arc in the sophomore season of the hit series. Sweeney earned an Emmy nod for her performance in season 2, and more people began to take notice of her work. But are there any downsides to her role?

Sydney Sweeney absolutely loves working on’Euphoria’

Sweeney has been candid about just how much she loves working on Euphoria. She has shared that there’s a strong sisterhood on set between her and her female castmates. Furthermore, she has gushed openly about the show’s writer and creator, Sam Levinson, whom she collaborates closely with. And while Sweeney doesn’t agree with all of her character’s decisions, she admits she loves acting out all of Cassie’s dramatic, over-the-top feelings.

The actor feels she has been hypersexualized because of Cassie’s nude scenes

But playing Cassie isn’t always a cakewalk. In fact, Sweeney feels she herself has to deal with the same hypersexualization that her Euphoria character experiences. The actor has shared that she feels people didn’t take her acting seriously in the first season of the show because of the nudity the role required. Furthermore, she’s seen criticism that implies that she’s only booked jobs after Euphoria because she went topless. While speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Sweeney got candid about these criticisms.

“Cassie is a sexualized character, and that became a mold that was then [forced] onto me as a human being instead of just Cassie,” Sweeney shared when asked if she’d been pigeonholed by Euphoria. “I was seeing people say, ‘Oh, she only got this because she showed her boobs.’ I had multiple shows and movies before I even did Euphoria.”

Sweeney has always played a variety of characters throughout her career

Sweeney certainly had some impressive credits before she booked Euphoria. She starred in Netflix’s Everything Sucks!, HBO’s Sharp Objects, and Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, before she ever auditioned for Cassie. The roles were all drastically different from one another, which is something that Sweeney did deliberately. According to The Players Table producer, playing a variety of different people is her goal as an actor.

“I look very different in everything I do because I want to become the character individually, and I don’t want people to associate Sydney Sweeney with a character — I want them to fully feel like they’re experiencing another world and another person,” Sweeney shared. Fortunately for Sweeney, she booked The White Lotus between the first two seasons of Euphoria. She feels this helped some people stop trying to put her into a box. And considering the variety of different projects that the actor has in the works, it’s clear that she’s doing all she can to prevent the industry from pigeonholing her.