“Euphoria” wrapped its three-season run Sunday, and Alexa Demie marked the goodbye by saying the quiet part out loud. At 35, she admits she once believed refusing Maddy Perez’s sex scenes would cost her the role.
In a cover interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Demie said the fear was hers alone. “I thought that if I said no to doing them, then I wouldn’t have the part,” she said. “Not because anyone ever said that to me, but because I was so young and I didn’t know.”
Demie traced it to a first-season montage of Maddy cheating on Nate Jacobs. Once she filmed it, she said, she knew she did not like how it felt, so she spoke up. Series creator Sam Levinson was empathetic, she said, and she never did those scenes again.
The admission lands as “Euphoria” ends a run known for putting young characters in explicit scenes. Demie was an adult playing a teenager, but her point was about a young actor who did not know “no” was an option.
She also shut down chatter that she is quitting acting, pushback at a resurfaced 2020 podcast clip. “What happened to my ability to choose?” she told the outlet. “I like my life like this, and I wouldn’t change it.”
