Sydney Sweeney Reveals Cut Euphoria Scenes, Including a Strip Club Visit

Sydney Sweeney is saying goodbye to Cassie for good, and in a new interview she explains why the character’s provocative storyline never put her off: “I’m an actress, that’s my job.” She also reveals a scene that was cut from the season, and the request she made to the show’s creator: “Please release it, I put a lot of work into it.”

The final season of “Euphoria” delivered plenty of moments that stirred controversy, but few sparked as much discussion as Cassie’s storyline. Some argued that the character, who became an “OnlyFans” model, had become too provocative, that her scenes were mainly meant to shock, and that some of them even made Sydney Sweeney look ridiculous. Now that the series has ended, the actress is defending Cassie’s choices and explaining why they made complete sense to her, while also revealing a scene that was cut at the last minute.

In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Sweeney said, “From the beginning you can see that Cassie has a need to be loved. She needs validation and recognition from other people. She doesn’t know how to love herself unless someone else loves her, so I understand how Sam (Levinson, the series creator, M.D.) brought her to where she is in season three. I think she was more excited by the idea that all these people loved her, knew who she was, and made her feel like her world was no longer small.”

Cassie’s storyline included quite a few nude scenes, but it turns out Sweeney herself insisted on not softening them. Levinson previously told The New York Times that he had initially considered filming the “OnlyFans” scenes more suggestively, without nudity, but Sweeney opposed the idea. “Are you kidding me? I’m playing an ‘OnlyFans’ model. You’re telling me you’re just going to skip that?” she told him.

Sweeney said she had conversations with Levinson before filming began, and that from the outset she was committed to bringing “Sam’s vision” to life. “He sent me all the scripts, and all of Cassie’s scenes were already in them, including the ‘OnlyFans’ scenes. Then he called me, and we talked about it and all the implications,” she explained. “He asked me how I felt about it, and I said, ‘Look, I’m playing a character.’ Do I agree with all of Cassie’s decisions? Would I personally have made the same choices? No, of course not. But I’m an actress, and that’s my job. That’s Cassie’s life, and to do her justice and portray her as she’s meant to be portrayed, you have to bring Sam’s vision to life and play Cassie in the most vulnerable, exposed and crazy way possible.”

Later in the interview, Sweeney revealed that Cassie also had a pole-dancing scene in a strip club, but it ended up on the cutting-room floor. “There were some really fun scenes where Cassie goes to a strip club with Maddy. They’re filming, and Cassie starts watching the girls on stage and gets really excited. She thinks to herself, ‘Wow, those girls are beautiful. I can do that too.’ She gets completely drunk, goes on stage, dresses accordingly and starts pole dancing.”

According to her, the scene also required special preparation. “I took pole-dancing lessons, and it was so much fun. Imagine crazy Cassie on a pole, it was just hilarious. But wow, those girls are strong.”

So why were the scenes cut? Sweeney explained, “Sam called me a few days before the episode where the scenes were supposed to appear. He explained that it just didn’t work in terms of the episode, and I completely understood. I was disappointed, but he suggested that maybe we release it as deleted scenes or behind-the-scenes material, and I said, ‘Please do that, because I put a lot of hard work into it.’”

Saying goodbye to Cassie was not easy for Sweeney, who has portrayed the character since the first season in 2019. “Every season, as Sam always says, he treats it like it’s the last season. We all approached it with the same mindset, so I always said goodbye to Cassie on the last day of filming. It’s a bittersweet farewell, because she’s such a challenging character and she pulls me as an actress. I love going to places that other characters maybe don’t go to. So it’s definitely a hard goodbye, because it’s just so much fun to play her.”