Sydney Sweeney on ‘Euphoria,’ ‘White Lotus,’ and path to stardom

My name is Sydney Sweeney. You may have seen me in anyone but you were Euphoria. You definitely did not see me in Madame Web. That is Sydney Sweeney making her debut last night as host of Saturday Night Live. With a little self-deprecation about her latest movie, Grammy winner Casey Musgraves was the show's musical guest, and by the way, will be our guest next week. For Sweeney, the coveted SNL hosting gig is the latest milestone in a run over the last few years that has made her one of the biggest stars in the world. Her recent romantic comedy, Anyone But You, co-starring Glenn Powell, stunned Hollywood with a staggering $230 million at the box office. Sweeney's breakthrough came with performances in the series Euphoria and The White Lotus, each earning her an Emmy nomination. Euphoria, the intense show about a group of high school students, has become a touchstone for a generation and made Sweeney one of its favorite voices. Sydney and I got together in New York last year for a Sunday sit-down where we talked first about our mutual love of old Ford Broncos. Sydney Sweeney is driving in Hollywood's Fast Lane, but away from the bright lights, you can find her in a garage, sleeves rolled up, restoring her beloved vintage Bronco. So you've got a 1969. I do. You did the transmission and the brakes and everything else? Suspension, worked on the engine, the entire interior, all of it. How long have you been a gearhead? I mean, I've always loved cars, but I was finally able to actually get into it about three years ago. Those last three years or so have seen Sweeney launch to stardom, thanks first to Euphoria, where she stars as an unhinged high school student named Cassie Howard. You guys can all judge me if you want, but I do not care. I have never, ever been happier. I love playing Cassie, especially last season because she was so crazy. And as an actor, that's just so much fun to kind of stretch your legs and play characters that go insane. Over two seasons, with a third on the way, Euphoria has shocked its obsessed viewers with scenes of teenage drug use and explicit sex. What did you love when you read that part about Cassie? I always tend to drift towards characters who might read one way on a page, and I like to find the emotional depth to who she is and why she is. She's a beautiful, broken character. I'm the one who falls in love! Have you been struck by how resonant that show has been? It's amazing. It's become a part of the culture. I mean, I remember my brother when he was a freshman and sophomore in college, and they were throwing Euphoria college-themed parties, and he was like, I can't escape it. Speaking of your family, I do have to ask you, perhaps they weren't prepared the first time they saw the show? My mom was. Yeah, I didn't prepare my dad at all. So he decided he was going to watch it without telling me, with his parents. So your grandparents and your father pull up with some popcorn. Yep. Let's watch Sid in Euphoria. Yep. What happened next? My dad and my grandpa turned it off and walked out, but my grandma, my grandma's a good, she's a big supporter of mine. She's a fan. She is. Fresh off the success of Euphoria, Sweeney found herself in a Hawaiian paradise and another hit series in the first season of HBO's The White Lotus. Okay, don't worry about it, Mom. We all love Hillary Clinton. One of the things your shows all have in common, not just that they're excellent series, but they dial into something in pop culture. Did you feel that with White Lotus when it started? When it came out, yes. When it came out, I was in Italy. People started coming up to me. I've never had people come up to me outside of the States. So I was like, oh, wow, this has gone a little further than I thought. Yeah. The now 26-year-old Sweeney grew up outside of Spokane, Washington, where she got her first taste of acting with a low-budget zombie movie. Mommy, Daddy. I always told my parents that I wanted to be an actress. So when I was about 11, 12 years old, this movie came to town and I found out. And I put together a five-year business plan of what could happen if they let me audition for this movie. And if I audition for the movie, then I'll meet people who could introduce me to casting directors or agents, and then I could get into short films and commercials, and then they could take me to pilot scenes. I looked into everything. Wow. And my parents realized that I was very serious about this. So serious that they agreed to drive their ambitious young daughter some 20-hour round trip to Los Angeles for every audition. What were those early years like? It was hard because you go from a small town to a big city and there's 100,000 people who want the exact same thing. And my five-year business plan wasn't five years, it took ten. It was a lot of no's. And as a pre-teen into a teenage girl, being told no all the time, that's really hard. Her perseverance paid off. In 2018, Sweeney was cast in three successful shows, Everything Sucks, Sharp Objects, and The Handmaid's Tale. You just caught me cheating on you. You should care. Sweeney's quick rise has thrust the young actress into the spotlight and the headlines. To have your face so recognizable and your name, and you've become this sort of iconic person, teenage girls and others, have you grappled with that yet? That you are this figure in the culture? I definitely feel the responsibility of it, but I'm still figuring it all out. It's complicated. Yeah. I'm still a 25-year-old girl trying to figure out life. Yeah. In the 2023 film, Reality, Sweeney took on another 25-year-old, real-life NSA contractor, Reality Winner, who was arrested and convicted of leaking classified intelligence in 2018. Reality, which is just an amazing performance by you, especially when you consider that this is a film based verbatim on an FBI transcript. There's no dramatization. You didn't flower it up or do anything different. So when you heard the idea for this, did you say, how are we going to pull that off exactly? I was a little scared because I've never done something where I had to take someone's dialogue verbatim and make sure that I was honouring it. I really wanted to make sure that I was doing justice to Reality's story. It was too much to sit back and watch it and think, why do I have this job if I'm going to be helpless? What did you sympathize with when you read her story? I just saw this girl that is coming of age, trying to navigate life, that thought she was doing the right thing for the people that she served. This sounds really bad. Am I going to jail tonight? Congratulations on Reality. Thank you. Really good. People are going to love seeing it. And mostly congratulations on your 69 Bronco. Thank you. The crown jewel of your career. It's definitely, honestly, it's a highlight. Definitely a highlight. She really knows those Broncos. Sydney's current movie, Madam Web, is in theatres now. And there's still no date yet for that third season of Euphoria. Our thanks again to Il Fiorista Restaurant in New York for hosting our conversation. Don't forget to subscribe to the Sunday Sit-Down Podcast to hear the full extended interview with Sydney Sweeney. Find that on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get yours. Click the link right here.