When Sam Levinson walked onto the stage at the Euphoria season three premiere in Los Angeles, it had been more than four years since he’d spoken to a
When Sam Levinson walked onto the stage at the Euphoria season three premiere in Los Angeles, it had been more than four years since he’d spoken to an audience about the hit HBO show.
A lot can happen in four years—and for Levinson and his cast, that’s an understatement. After making two seasons of the hit series that launched half a dozen careers, won several Emmys, and became a watercooler show for its edgy storytelling and boundary-pushing performances, Euphoria hit a wall.
“The fact that we’re actually here and we’re able to pull this season off—that’s nothing short of a miracle,” Levinson said as he welcomed the crowd to the TCL Theater in Hollywood. The show’s stars, Zendaya, Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney, Hunter Schafer, Maude Apatow, and Alexa Demie were all in attendance. Levinson thanked them all for sticking with him, but he wanted to focus his attention on a cast member who was no longer present. “Some people asked why it took so long between seasons two and three. There were obvious factors—the strikes, trying to make a schedule work with our very in-demand cast—but the real time was in trying to figure out how to find a way to pay respect to those who we lost.”
Levinson spoke specifically about Angus Cloud, the actor who had played the kindhearted drug dealer Fezco on the show, who died from an accidental drug overdose in July 2023, at the age of 25. “When Angus died, it was tough,” said Levinson, whose voice broke with emotion as he spoke. “I loved him deeply, and I fought hard to keep him clean.”
The loss of Cloud was a hard moment for Levinson, who had in part created Euphoria—which centers on Zendaya’s Rue, a high school student battling addiction—based on his own struggles with substance abuse. It also forced Levinson to rethink his approach to season three, which he had at the time been writing. He told The New York Times that he had initially planned for Cloud’s character to have a bigger role in this season, and had to rework all of that after he passed. (This third season also serves as a farewell to Eric Dane, who played Nate’s father. The actor was diagnosed with ALS in 2025, but was able to complete filming the show before he passed away in February.)
As fans eagerly awaited the return of the series, the question of why it was taking so long began to grow louder and louder after each delay. And the delays didn’t just frustrate fans, but created a rift between Levinson and Zendaya. A source tells Vanity Fair that after the once close collaborators grew apart over the delay, Zendaya was less involved with development in the third season. Indeed, though she had an executive producer credit for the first two seasons, she doesn’t have an EP credit for this recent installment. However, another source involved with the project says that Zendaya was still vital to the project’s development, and did approve the storylines. “Zendaya had an incredibly demanding shooting schedule in 2025 and has several major projects that release this year so she was unable to commit to serving as an executive producer this season,” says the source. (Vanity Fair reached out to HBO and Zendaya’s representatives for comment.)
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