Euphoria star Alexa Demie on the TV show that’s changed the high-school genre forever
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9th Jul 2019
Euphoria star Alexa Demie had technically embarked on a phone-free holiday in Tulum, Mexico when episode one of the much-hyped (and Drake-produced) TV series aired. At least, that was her plan when she checked into a hotel room without a TV.
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By the evening of the show’s debut, the temptation to check Twitter proved too irresistible. “I was off my phone for the most part,” she says in her native east Hollywood accent on the line from her LA home. There’s a brief pause. “Until I started to watch the live reactions. We were trending number three worldwide and number one in the US. It was too much to look!”
If you haven’t seen it yet, is creator Sam Levinson’s unflinchingly candid portrayal of modern, high-school life, with Levinson’s own experiences of drug addiction channelled through the series’ lead and former Disney child star, Zendaya. “We show drugs, we show sex, we show violence,” Demie explains. “We show all of these things, but we really don’t glorify it; we show a lot of the consequences.”
The 24-year-old musician and actress drew on her own teenage years to play the seemingly tough Maddy, who is caught in a volatile relationship with boyfriend Nate (played by Jacob Elordi).
“She’s the girl that I easily could have ended up being,” Demie explains with disarming honesty. Maddy’s self-imposed perfectionist beauty standards when it comes to her hair and make-up are, as the actress explains, her way of protecting herself and masking intense emotional pain. “She comes from a home where her parents don’t get along and she is seeking attention from men which she doesn’t get from her dad.”
isn’t the first time Demie has taken on a character that mirrors parts of her own world. She had originally been on course to attend fashion school in New York before scoring a series of small parts in independent films that paved the way for her breakout role in Jonah Hill’s directorial debut, , among a young Californian cast that had grown up together.
The call from director Augustine Frizzell came during a post- lull. “I wasn’t reading anything that I liked,” Demie explains. “I thought about not acting and just focusing on music.” Her voice rises an octave as she remembers how much she wanted the role of Maddy— and then the moment she learned of Drake’s involvement. “Oh my God, are… you… … me. Drake is involved!?”
What was it like to work with the superstar? “He’s so supportive and he was very involved in the marketing, which he and his team are so good at,” she says, regaining her cool. Having Drake as producer also came in handy for the premiere after-party—“He DJ’d a little bit.”
If Demie had been originally planning a no-phone break after wrapped, her plans were again scuppered. She’d received word that director Gia Coppola was texting people she knew (including actor Lucas Hedges) to sound out whether the actress was ready to take on “a highly emotional scene” in her new movie alongside Andrew Garfield.
Sure enough, the role was hers.
“I guess the universe intervened,” she says, her voice flooding with optimism. “.’”
Image credit: Courtesy of HBO