Emmy-winner Zendaya has played Rue since the drama series premiered on HBO in 2019
Credit: Eddy Chen/HBO
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Euphoria season 3 finale, now streaming on HBO Max.
NEED TO KNOW
- Zendaya reflected on saying goodbye to Rue and the emotional journey of playing the character for three seasons
- Season 3 explored the characters’ lives five years post-graduation with a more mature, Western tone
- Zendaya confirmed on The Drew Barrymore Show that Euphoria would likely conclude for her with season 3
Zendaya's Euphoria journey came to a tragic end in the season 3 finale.
The drama's latest season concluded on HBO on Sunday, May 31, with Rue Bennett overdosing on laced pills given to her by Alamo Brown (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) midway through the episode. Colman Domingo's Ali, Rue's mentor and sponsor, finds her dead on his couch, and he later gets revenge, killing Alamo in a tense standoff.
During a post-episode behind-the-scenes look at the finale, creator Sam Levinson spoke about the decision to kill off Rue.
"It just felt like the honest ending," he said. "The honest ending is that people like Rue don't make it."
"People relapse. They f— up. They're not ready to get clean. And they weren't dying like they are now, with the influx of fentanyl into this country," said Levinson, 41, who has spoken about his own addiction experience in the past. "I can say with absolute certainly that if I was going through what I went through when I was younger now, I wouldn't be here either. There's no reason to sugarcoat it. I wanted to tell this story for Angus [Cloud] and for people who weren't granted a second chance."
Cloud, who played Fez in the show, died of an accidental overdose in July 2023, at age 25. Cloud, whose character is still alive in season 3, is briefly shown onscreen in the finale during a sequence in which Rue thinks he has escaped prison and she's going to reunite with him.
Zendaya, 29, who has won two Emmy Awards for her work in the previous seasons, is shown in the behind-the-scenes breakdown saying an emotional goodbye to the crew after wrapping her season 3 scenes.
"I just want to say, thank you," she said on set. "I'm incredibly grateful for every single one one of you, many of you have been here since the beginning and watched me grow up. It's been such a pleasure and an honor. Thank you so much."
Credit: Patrick Wymore/HBO
Season 3 marked the long-awaited return of the HBO drama, which first premiered in 2019. The new episodes pick up after the explosive events of season 2 and lean into a more mature, Western tone as Rue and the other characters navigate adulthood and the consequences of their past choices.
In a previous installment of Variety's Actors on Actors conversations with Andrew Garfield, Zendaya spoke about her Euphoria character. “I’m very protective over Rue,” she said. “And also, because of all the people that she represents, I know that sometimes the world won’t be as kind to her as I am. And that’s hard for me, you know?”
Credit: Eddy Chen/HBO
That protective instinct has remained a consistent theme in Zendaya’s reflections on Rue, especially when speaking directly to audiences.
“Anyone who has loved a Rue or feels like they are a Rue, I want you to know that I am so grateful for your stories and I carry them with me and I carry them with her,” Zendaya said during her 2022 Emmy acceptance speech for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She has also said she hoped audiences would see Rue as worthy of love and redemption even at her lowest points, adding, “My greatest wish for Euphoria was that it could help real people.”
Zendaya has also discussed how much her life changed during the break between seasons. On the April 6 episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, she confirmed that Euphoria would likely conclude for her with its third season.
“Euphoria cracked my heart open. Rue taught me so much about empathy and about redemption,” she told Barrymore. “I’m very grateful for all of it.”
Euphoria is now streaming on HBO Max.
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