Euphoria star Alexa Demie drew a line when it came to her character’s sex scenes.
“I said something, and everyone was empathetic, and I never did that again,” Demie, who portrays It Girl Maddy Perez on the hit HBO series, told The Hollywood Reporter in a Sunday, May 31, interview of the honest conversation she had with show creator Sam Levinson.
Maddy’s story line in season 1 called for several sex scenes and nudity. Demie, 35, admitted there was one scene in particular that bothered her, in which she filmed a montage of the men she hooked up with while in a toxic on-again, off-again relationship with Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi).
“Once I did it, I realized, ‘OK, I don’t love how this feels,’” she shared.“I’m not saying I don’t love sex, and I think it can be portrayed beautifully and I know the show is portraying the life of teenage girls.”
While reflecting on Maddy’s evolution during the show’s 3 series, and in addition to her own personal growth, Demie said she eventually found her footing.
“I thought that if I said no to doing them, then I wouldn’t have the part,” she explained of Maddy’s racier scenes. “Not because anyone ever said that to me, but because I was so young and I didn’t know.”
Demie said she never placed blame on Levinson, 41, or production for her feeling uncomfortable and pushed to film scenes that left her uneasy, noting that she hadn’t yet learned how to separate herself from Maddy. Instead, she said, she now knows she should have asked for support.
During the third and final season of Euphoria, Maddy found herself involved with cowboy mob boss Alamo Brown (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) after she asked for his help in order to pay off Nate’s massive debt, not only to save his life from Armenian loan shark and gangster Naz (Jack Topalian) but also to help her former BFF-turned-OnlyFans client Cassie Jacobs (Sydney Sweeney), who married Nate earlier in the season and unwittingly took on his debt.
In season 3’s episode 7, titled “Rain or Shine,” Alamo sexually propositions Maddy as part of the deal to free Nate and Cassie of their debt. While discussing the issue, Alamo made Maddy wear a particular bathing suit and join him in the hot tub.
After the scene aired, fans were questioning if the pair had sex, as it ended with the hookup merely being implied.
“It was an interesting scene because it’s so layered. It’s very loaded,” Akinnuoye-Agbaje, 58, exclusively told Us Weekly at the MPTF NextGen Summer Party, presented by Delta Air Lines and Waymo, on Sunday, May 31. “From the bathing suit to the music to the champagne, he knew exactly what he was going to do. So myself and Sam, we discussed that. And whilst it was going to be flirtatious from Alamo’s perspective — and playful — there’s an ominous reality that, you know, you’re going to do what I tell you to do now.”
He continued, “To answer your question, did he sleep with her? Well, he was not there to play with her toes. For what she’s asking him to do — take out a life and give a million dollars — yeah, he most definitely did what he needed to do with that beautiful lady.”
