Following the series finale of Euphoria on Sunday night, creator Sam Levinson has defended himself against fan outrage over the highly sexualized direction taken by Sydney Sweeney's character, Cassie Howard. Fans expressed shock and anger at seeing the 28-year-old actress perform nude in numerous scenes after her character started a career as an OnlyFans model to earn money while her husband Nate (Jacob Elordi) was brutalized by loan sharks.
According to Levinson, who wrote and directed all eight episodes of the third and final season, it was Sweeney who practically forced him to include copious nudity for her character. During an appearance on Sunday's episode of the New York Times' Popcast, released shortly after the finale aired, Levinson revealed that he initially considered a more tasteful version of the season that minimized nude scenes for Cassie.
When co-host Joe Coscarelli referenced the shocking intro to the season's fifth episode, featuring a bizarre montage of Sweeney performing nude fetish scenes, Levinson responded, "Well, it's funny. When I first wrote it, I thought, 'Maybe we shoot all of this and we don't have any nudity.' I was talking to her, and you know, [I said] 'Maybe there's ways to shoot around certain things?'"
According to the 41-year-old writer and director, Sweeney put her foot down after he tried to chicken out. "She looked at me, and she was like, 'Are you kidding? It's like, I'm playing an OnlyFans model. You're telling me you're going to, like, skirt around it?' And I was like, 'Yeah, OK, it's a fair point,'" he recalled. "So there's always a discussion of what works best for the character."
Levinson praised Sweeney as a "totally fearless actor" and said she was "wonderfully professional" and "showed up game every day" to set. "I adore working with her, because there's such a flexibility in terms of the performance," he continued. As an example, he noted that he could suggest she make a scene "just a little crazier, with a little more humor, and suddenly, just this whole other version of the scene can come out just based on her performance. So there's a lot of trust that we have."
Levinson directly addressed complaints from fans and critics that Sweeney's scenes contributed to the overly sexualized tone of the final season. "I believe very strongly that the best, most honest performances are when an actor feels free and safe. That's how you get a great performance," he said. "You can't if there is any tension, [because] the emotion that is going to be blocked. And that's something I've known from my days of studying acting." He claimed his "job" on set is to "create the most conducive environment for the actor" to play their role, adding that building trust is essential for long-term collaborations.
Ahead of the finale, Sweeney had a sharp retort for critics who slammed her raunchy scenes. She took to Instagram on Sunday to share behind-the-scenes photos, including one with a yellow python draped around her nearly nude body and another showing her pole skills. In the caption, she wrote, "It's called… acting," seemingly addressing backlash from those who claimed the scenes were "degrading."
Fans and critics have been blasting the third season for its "nasty" scenes, questioning why Cassie continued to be "degraded" in X-rated fetish segments, some of which saw her completely topless. In one episode, she posed for provocative photos with ice cream dripping down her nude cleavage, and in another, she wore nothing but a backwards baseball cap. An "adult baby" scene also drew criticism. "Somebody save Sydney Sweeney," one fan wrote, while others called the scenes a "humiliation ritual."
Experts have warned that Sweeney's career could be at risk if she continues shooting racy scenes. Crisis and reputation management expert Dave Quast told Fox News that while Euphoria helped establish her as a fearless performer, "the risk is that when the public conversation focuses more on the sexualized aspects of the role than on the performance, the same work that made her seem daring can start to narrow the brand." He added, "For Sweeney, the challenge is not that she has played sexualized roles. The challenge is making sure those roles continue to read as character choices, not as the entire brand proposition."
However, Sweeney's boyfriend, Scooter Braun, 44, has no problem with her raunchy scenes. He recently praised her "incredible performance" on the show and took to Instagram on Sunday to share a clip of them biking in Times Square, where he took her for the first time. She responded with a shrug and heart emoji. The couple was first romantically linked in June 2025 after being seen together at Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez's wedding.
