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Lexi Howard (Maude Apatow) spent much of the first season ofEuphoriawaiting in the wings.
In Sundayspenultimate episode of the season, its finally showtime.
Heres how they tweaked their usual process to bring Lexis vision to life.
Writer-director Sam Levinson wanted exaggerated versions of the core characters for the play.
Throughout the season, Lexi has been getting progressively bolder with her makeup looks and hairstyles.
Instead, were treated to Lexis point of view for most of the running time.
Because Lexi is a more organized person, we felt Lexi would represent things in a more contained way.
Its a very subjective point of view, but the whole show is a very subjective point of view.
Even Lexis perspective doesnt necessarily make it a realist perspective, said director of photography Marcell Rev.
Those lighting choices affected the key in of film stock used on a scene-by-scene basis.
Rev underexposed the Kodak stock as it was developing so it would match the overall look of the series.
But not everything lined up with the realistic parameters of a high-school play.
It was more interesting to just see what we could do.
Because the whole show is not based in realism, we let ourselves be free with that.
It gave us so many opportunities to have motion with the other sets, said Stewart.
At first, Levinson considered cutting it in half given the long running time.
And Sam watched it again and was like, Youre right.
Theres no way we can edit this.
Aside from zeroing in on the song, the original scripted version was fairly vague, according to Heffington.
Heffington substituted those elements for more bumping-and-grinding choreography.
Ethans playfulness is central to the scene.
It felt like a fever dream no, more like a wet dream, Heffington said.
The goal was to make the performance as over-the-top as possible.
I used mad scientist as a direction for Austin, he said.
He should be filled with this teenage horniness and excitement about sex.
Matching Ethans hair to that of Nates was top of mind for Kimbles team.
I wanted to get skin-tone football pants for each actor, but getting the skin tone right was complicated.
Then we tried a light-gold metallic, which felt like high-school theater.
Instead of using literal lockers, I thought,Why not grow them?
His team rigged them to open at the same time with a musical cue.
Everyone was beaming and in tears.
It felt like a live performance, recalls Bivens.
