{"id":734512,"date":"2026-06-13T16:25:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T16:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/734512\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T16:25:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T16:25:15","slug":"euphoria-creator-sam-levinson-reveals-zendayas-reaction-to-rues-fate-in-season-3-just-jared-celebrity-news-and-gossip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/734512\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Euphoria’ Creator Sam Levinson Reveals Zendaya’s Reaction to Rue’s Fate in Season 3 – Just Jared – Celebrity News and Gossip"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"SamCredit: Getty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!<\/p>\n

Sam Levinson<\/a> is looking back at the \u201ctough\u201d conversation he had with Zendaya<\/a> when he pitched her the ending to her Euphoria<\/a> character Rue\u2019s story.<\/p>\n

In the season three finale of the hit HBO series, which also served as the series finale<\/a>, Rue dies from an accidental overdose<\/a> when she took fentanyl-laced pills given to her by crime lord Alamo Brown (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje).<\/p>\n

During his appearance on the Wednesday (June 10) episode of Variety\u2018s \u201cHalf Hour With\u201d series<\/a>, Sam revealed that the 29-year-old two-time Emmy winner had a \u201cvery emotional reaction\u201d to learning about Rue\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love the character Rue,\u201d Sam said as he praised Zendaya for doing \u201csuch an incredible job bringing this character to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/a><\/p>\n

He went on to call Zendaya a \u201cgifted actor\u201d and said \u201cwouldn\u2019t be as charming and lovable and humorous\u201d if she was played by someone else.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it was a tough discussion,\u201d Sam recalled. \u201cEven through shooting, it sort of weighed on both of us. At the end of the day, she understood what I was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sam went on to confirm that the manner of Rue\u2019s death was to honor late Euphoria star Angus Cloud<\/a>, who died from an accidental fentanyl overdose in July 2023 at the age of 25. The showrunner said that Angus \u201cwas someone whom we loved dearly and really rooted for and saw the best in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/a><\/p>\n

Sam also praised Colman Domingo<\/a>\u2018s performance as Rue\u2019s mentor, Ali Muhammad, who finds her dead body.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen when it came time to shoot the scene, we also had Colman Domingo there, who\u2019s been one of my closest collaborators for over a decade and a grounding force in Zendaya\u2019s life as well,\u201d Sam explained. \u201cThat kind of camaraderie really helped this sequence feel authentic and meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been doing this for eight, nine years together, so it was a beautiful couple of days as we were shooting those scenes, because I think we knew how audiences would respond to it.,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

In another recent interview, Sam defended his decision<\/a> to kill off Rue.<\/p>\n

Posted To:Euphoria<\/a> Sam Levinson<\/a> Television<\/a> Zendaya<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Getty WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! Sam Levinson is looking back at the \u201ctough\u201d conversation he had with Zendaya…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-734512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}