Gist
Hunter Schafer on Becoming Jules: “A Lot of My Experiences Fall in Line With Hers”
Euphoria’s Hunter Schafer continues to be vocal about her navigating trans id as a teen, and it naturally has followers of the present curious concerning the crossover between her and her character, Jules. Identical to in actual life, Schafer’s Jules is a younger trans lady on the HBO collection — a subject that will get explored extra on her particular standalone episode, “F*ck Anybody Who’s Not a Sea Blob,” in season one. Throughout a latest episode of Divine Frequency With Hunter Schafer & Lorde, the Euphoria star opened up concerning the episode — which she additionally co-wrote — and shared how a lot of herself she poured into Jules.
“The episode, there’s lots of me in it,” she says. “And even Jules as a personality within the first season . . . lots of my experiences fall in keeping with hers or Sam’s, so it’s kind of of a combination of each of us.” Within the “Jules” episode, Schafer’s character has an in-depth remedy session the place she talks about her transition, going off her hormones, and her life’s wrestle to “conquer femininity.” In a earlier interview with V Journal, Schafer additionally revealed how her personal transition in actual life influenced her relationship to Jules.
“It did not really feel pure at first. A part of surviving was simply getting by sh*t, letting it relaxation, and never addressing it. I feel that is what I had been [doing] as much as that time: simply going and going, preventing to be on the opposite aspect of my transition,” she mentioned. “There was a lot that I used to be working towards, and I used to be so excited to [be out of] North Carolina that I do not assume I would ever appeared again on [that experience].”
“I by no means acted earlier than Euphoria and it was not in my plan in any respect.”
Euphoria has by no means positioned Schafer or her character’s gender id on the coronary heart of the present, and it is partially as a result of Schafer has had a hand in creating Jules into a completely realized character whose selfhood would not solely revolve round being trans. However past id struggles, Schafer has additionally skilled different issues younger individuals usually take care of in maturity: imposter syndrome.
On Divine Frequency With Hunter Schafer & Lorde, she advised Lorde that she nearly turned down the chance to star in Euphoria: torn between the choice to attempt one thing new or persist with modeling. “I by no means acted earlier than Euphoria and it was not in my plan in any respect,” she mentioned. “I used to be actually shy, I used to be solely modeling in New York simply actually to be making some cash and be in New York and round an business that I wished to work in. However even with the performative stuff of that, I could not have dreamed of performing.”
The choice to take the position nonetheless wasn’t straightforward for Schafer, however the casting crew’s persistence helped persuade her to take up performing professionally. I personally cannot think about anybody else encapsulating Jules in addition to Schafer has, so thank goodness she determined to pursue the half, as a result of it helped turned Euphoria into a serious hit!
