'Euphoria' star Sydney Sweeney opens up about the 'disgusting' bathtub scene: "Filling my mouth..."
Sydney Sweeney's portrayal of Cassie Howard in HBO's popular high-school series 'Euphoria' garnered positive attention from critics and audiences worldwide. The White Lotus actress revealed in an exclusive with Variety that she loved to showcase diverse sides of her personality while playing the character. “Give me more. I’m going to show you what I have. There’s so much to this girl,” she admitted telling show creator Sam Levinson. And indeed the makers got 'disgustingly' creative while filming the iconic bathtub vomit scene with Sweeney. The 'Madam Web' actress shared that they shot the sequence with a pump, pipe, and horse bit.
“During that scene, they're filling my mouth with throwup, and then I open my mouth and it just starts shooting out of my mouth. And it was the most disgusting thing I've ever experienced,” she said while appearing on the 'Hot Ones' segment in January 2024. “A lot of films, they'll just have a cup of mushed up anything that they have from craft team mixed with milk and water,” Sweeney explained, “and it’s the most disgusting thing, and you just put it in your mouth and you hold it and then you puke it up.” People reported that the whole setup turned humiliating.
“Sam, of course, did not want that,” she continued. “He just wanted vomit everywhere, so they had to get a pump, and they had this pipe that they just taped and hid on my body, and then they CGI-ed it out up my neck. And then there was a horse bit that I had to put in my mouth.” The visually repulsive scene was shot to depict substance addiction and the risqué life of teenagers. Sweeney previously told Today that her family was shocked to watch her 'racy' act in the series and they 'walked out' after a few episodes. “My mom visited me on set quite a few times, so she knew the story,” she claimed. “My dad didn’t. I didn't prepare my dad at all. … So he decided he was going to watch it without telling me, with his parents.”
“My dad and my grandpa turned it off and walked out,” she added. As per People, Sweeney called her character 'broken and beautiful' to play on screen, she added about her experience saying, “She’s a beautiful, broken character,” she said. “I love playing Cassie, especially last season because she was so crazy. As an actor, that’s just so much fun to kind of stretch your legs and play characters that go insane and do all these crazy choices.” The 'Night Teen' actress also opened up about enjoying playing the different layers of her character and getting emotionally involved with the theme.
“I always tend to drift towards characters who might read one way on a page, and I like to find the layers to that character. … Finding the layers and the emotional depth to who she is and why she is, how she acts, and what she thinks.” She concluded, “I'm really looking forward to seeing what Cassie does [in] season 3." The intriguing drama series was renewed for another season and according to Deadline, JB Perrette, CEO and President of Global Streaming for HBO/Max parent Warner Bros. Discovery, confirmed it is slated for a 2026 release.