‘Euphoria’ Creator Staged Intervention For Angus Cloud: “You’ve Got To Get Help”

Euphoria creator Sam Levinson revealed in a new interview that he tried to help late actor Angus Cloud with his addiction issues multiple times while filming the HBO series.

Speaking to People, Levinson detailed numerous instances and conversations he had with the actor in which he urged him to get help, including sending him to rehab twice.

Levinson recalled that the first intervention occurred before Euphoria Season 2, after the actor suffered an injury that his mother said she thinks led to his “drug-seeking behavior.”

“I looked him in the eye and I knew that he wasn’t doing well,” Levinson, who previously struggled with addiction as a teen, told People. “At the same time I’ve been in these situations before where you’re trying to get someone clean. And I just said to him, ‘I love working with you and we’ve got this amazing season planned and stuff, but I need you to be sober because I got to be able to rely on you.'”

Cloud then entered a 30-day in-patient program, which HBO paid for. He continued attending outpatient rehab for three months after that, but Levinson said he could tell Cloud “didn’t want [sobriety] as much as we all wanted it for him.”

When Cloud later began using again halfway through the next season, Levinson and his wife personally drove him to a rehab facility.

Levinson told People he began to realize how important it was for Cloud to continue working. When filming on Season 2 wrapped in February 2022, the pair sat down for an hours-long conversation about him getting sober ahead of Season 3.

The actor maintained that he was “good,” but Levinson said, “I could tell, at that time, it was like he wasn’t interested. He wasn’t going to do anything, and yeah, he didn’t want it.”

Cloud died in July of this year at the age of 25 from an accidental drug overdose, just months after his father passed away.

He played an integral role on the show and in the cast, so much so that Levinson decided against having his character killed off of Euphoria. The series creator recalled seeing “the blood kind of run out of his face” after telling him that his character would die at the end of Season 2.

“I just thought, if this goes away, I don’t know what’s going to happen in his life,” Levinson recalled. He then went to the producers and told them Fezco had to live, saying, “I can’t do it. I can’t kill him. We got to keep him around. He’s too special. It doesn’t matter what the f—ing story is.”

Zendaya also recalled what a pleasure it was working with the actor.

“I’m lucky because I got to experience the most beautiful parts of him. I got to watch him create and I got to watch him discover the fact that he was an actor,” she told People. “A damn good one at that, and as many times as I would tell him or compliment his performance, I don’t think he ever truly believed it.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, call the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357.