Even if you haven't seen it yet, you've probably heard: episode five of Euphoria's sophomore season is by far the most intense in the show’s history. Zendaya, the show’s star and executive producer, opened up about the process of filming the pivotal episode in a new interview. A quick Twitter search will show you that fans all over the world are all still recovering from the latest episode of the HBO series and, well, according to Zendaya, so are the actors.
Warning: spoilers for season two of Euphoria below.
The episode, called "Stand Still Like the Hummingbird," opens up with an attempted Bennett family intervention. After Jules (played by Hunter Schafer) tells Leslie (Nika King) and Gia (Storm Reid) that Rue has relapsed, they dispose of her suitcase stash — a choice that quickly turns the attempted intervention into a brawl. Rue lashes out against Leslie, Gia, Jules, and Elliott, and begins to tear apart her home in search of the already-disposed stash. We see Rue at her lowest, kicking down the door to Gia's room and getting into a physical altercation with her mother.
Zendaya sat down with Entertainment Weekly to dissect the 15-minute-long opening scene, sharing that it was just as painfully hard to film as it was to watch. “It was a very tough day,” Zendaya recalled. “I mean, I beat myself up. I still have some scars on my legs, and got quite a few bruises.”
Emotions run dangerously high in the scene, especially as the hostility increases. Rue swivels back and forth between rage and grief at lightning speeds — a thrilling performance by Zendaya that has many already calling for her second Emmy nomination, including her castmate Angus Cloud.
“The reason I'm an actor is I'm quite [an] empathetic person and what I often do, I take on a lot of other people's pain and a lot of other people's stress and fears and anxieties, as well as my own,” Zendaya told EW. “And I think [that scene] just allowed me to just kind of release all of that. I'm very grateful that I'm in a space where I feel comfortable and safe, and with actors and actresses that I'm obviously very close with. After every take, we're hugging each other, we're talking through it, we're embracing, checking in, because obviously it's like a war zone.” Tackling the scene together was a feat Zendaya remembers as “emotionally taxing, but also physically taxing."
To say this is Rue’s most devastating episode to date would be a large understatement — a breaking point Zendaya says has been a long time in the making for both the actors and the viewers. During her interview, Zendaya revealed that this episode has been in the works since season one, always with the intention of being “intense,” though details have been tweaked.
"The general idea was always the same, which was this idea of, we cut right into an intervention and it's Rue just ripping her life apart and setting her life on fire and kind of tearing everything to the ground to basically come to hopefully what feels like rock bottom for her,” Zendaya said.
In a post shared to Instagram a few hours before Sunday night's episode aired, Zendaya wrote a message to fans about how “deeply” she cares for her character, and what she hopes viewers “hold onto” throughout Rue's journey. “It’s my hope for people watching that they still see her as a person worthy of their love," wrote Zendaya. "And worthy of their time, and that she has a redemptive quality still, and that we still see the good in her even if she can’t see it in herself.”
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In a new episode of the behind-the-scenes featurette Enter Euphoria, series creator Sam Levinson spoke about his intention behind the buzz-worthy opening scene. “I wanted to portray what an intervention looks like, just from a family perspective. And how hard it is to reason with someone who's in a state of true irrationality,” Levinson said. “That disparity between who she wants to be versus who she is, was something that was imperative to explore in this episode. The most important thing was to not shy away from how ugly those moments can be.”
Euphoria season two, episode five is available to watch now on HBO Max.
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