In an interview with Vanity Fair, actress Minka Kelly admitted that she was asked to go nude during her first day of shooting on Euphoria. She said she ended up telling
the show's writer and director, Sam Levinson, that they needed to make a change to the script.
The scene takes place in the second season of the HBO hit, in which Kelly's character Samantha asks teen babysitter Maddy, played by Alexa Demie, to help her unzip her dress.
“Levinson] thought it would be more interesting if my dress fell to the ground,” Kelly said. “That was my first day as a guest on this new show, and I just didn't feel comfortable standing there naked.”
Happily, Levinson was open to making adjustments to suit Kelly's comfort level.
“I said, ‘I'd love to do this scene, but I think we can keep my dress on.’ He was like, ‘Okay!’ He didn't even hesitate. And he shot a beautiful scene and got exactly what he wanted,” she explained.
Nudity has been a big subject on Euphoria, which frequently features naked bodies in ways that don't necessarily move the storyline along. One of the show's main characters, Cassie, has been topless multiple times just this season. The 24-year-old actress who plays her, Sydney Sweeney, said in an interview with the Independent last month that the many nude scenes were actually toned down at her request.
“Sam is amazing,” said Sweeney. “There are moments where Cassie was supposed to be shirtless and I would tell Sam, ‘I don't really think that's necessary here.’ He was like, ‘OK, we don't need it.’ I've never felt like Sam has pushed it on me or was trying to get a nude scene into an HBO show. When I didn't want to do it, he didn't make me.”
Chloe Cherry, who plays the new character Faye in season 2, also says she asked Levinson to change a scene that was supposed to be nude in an interview with The Daily Beast. In the episode, Faye witnesses someone being shot and gets covered in blood, and is then helped into a vent to hide by her co-star Tyler Chase, playing Faye's boyfriend Custer.
“Sam wanted to do the scene with me completely naked and Tyler was like, 'That's a lot,' so they decided not to,” said Cherry. “But I was covered in fake blood and just felt so good being on set.”