Within the second episode of “Euphoria” season three, Sydney Sweeney lounges poolside in skin-tight pants and a Barbie-pink crop high, eyes bugging out of her cranium. She’s in character as the attractive and determined Cassie Howard, attempting to persuade her best-friend-turned-romantic-rival, Maddy Perez (Alexa Demie), to propel her to web stardom.
“I simply really feel like if extra folks knew me, I’d be big,” Cassie proclaims with childlike pleasure. When Maddy observes that “the market is oversaturated with plenty of ladies such as you,” that means pretty blonde influencers, Cassie waves away her doubt with a superbly manicured hand. Success — notably the form of profitable, exterior ubiquity that Cassie is in search of on Instagram and OnlyFans — just isn’t about having good style or a transparent sense of self, she posits. There may be energy in a clean canvas.
“I may be something,” Cassie concludes.
This mantra could really feel acquainted to these following Sweeney’s real-life exploits. To the untrained eye, her fixed churn of enterprise alternatives and model offers (A lingerie line! That controversial American Eagle campaign! A cleaning soap that’s… made together with her bathwater?) hardly illustrates care or discernment. It is tempting to learn Cassie’s season three arc — chasing fame and fortune by leveraging her physique and lack of a “ethical code,” in Maddy’s phrases — as a merciless meta-commentary on Sweeney’s personal trajectory since “Euphoria” premiered in 2019. Whether or not it is Cassie’s debasing plea for Maddy’s assist or her disastrous wedding ceremony to Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi) in episode three, which leaves the bride bawling on the ground of her cheesy mansion, Sweeney’s Cassie is made to play the idiot.
In actuality, it is extra possible that Sweeney is aware of precisely what she’s doing. She’s an Emmy-nominated actor with agency, bankability, and, by all accounts, an open line of communication with “Euphoria” showrunner Sam Levinson. “I like Sydney,” Levinson just lately advised The New York Times. “Earlier than I wrote this season, she referred to as me and she or he mentioned, ‘Simply do me one favor: Ensure that Cassie’s loopy.'”
Sweeney characterised her request equally in a 2023 interview with Selection: “‘Give me extra,'” she said she told Levinson. “‘I’ll present you what I’ve. There’s a lot to this woman.'”
That Sweeney is sport to play Cassie as more and more shameless and attention-starved to encourage the viewers to snicker at her expense alerts that she’s in on the joke — maybe extra so than the web could notice.
Sweeney is a clean canvas by design
Patrick Wymore/HBO
In her offscreen life, Sweeney is routinely undogmatic. The 28-year-old, who was raised near the Washington-Idaho border, tends to deflect political questions with a deft contact of vagueness. What was it prefer to see President Donald Trump praising her “Great Jeans” campaign with American Eagle? “It was surreal.” What concerning the backlash to images from her mother’s party, the place visitors had been pictured wearing MAGA-inspired hats? “There have been so many misinterpretations.” Does she ever plan to make it clear the place she stands? “I am not a political individual.”
Consequently, Sweeney has been portrayed as each bogeywoman throughout the political spectrum, from a clueless puppet of the patriarchy to an anti-woke crusader to a sexually empowered girlboss.
The one factor you possibly can’t name Sweeney? A hypocrite.
If celebrities get essentially the most warmth when their actions go in opposition to their professed and even perceived values, there is a enterprise incentive to remain silent. In any case, you possibly can’t betray a trigger if you do not have one.
The uncommon stance Sweeney reveals, just like the time she declared that “we should all love each other,” is so completely bland that she stays free to make money however she likes, with out the chance of breaking her phrase or reneging on her ideas.
And earn cash she does. There’s the aforementioned collaboration with American Eagle and the now-infamous Dr. Squatch bar of cleaning soap purportedly made with Sweeney’s “actual bathwater,” however these are simply the advertisements that triggered essentially the most brouhaha. Along with launching her personal lingerie line, she’s additionally partnered with Laneige, Kérastase, Heydude, Dickies, Ford, and Baskin-Robbins, amongst others.
Skincare, hair care, footwear, workwear, automobiles, ice cream — who cares? Sydney Sweeney may be something, which, in at this time’s creator financial system, really means “promote something.”
Sweeney’s vague private model has stored skilled doorways open
Black Bear Footage
It appears like Cassie could also be on to one thing; Sweeney hasn’t wanted to show good style or a transparent sense of self to grow to be a family identify, not to mention a full-blown movie star.
For all the general public’s makes an attempt to pin down her place within the tradition wars, Sweeney has built a surprisingly varied filmography. Her poker face has worn many onscreen masks: Eden Blaine, a toddler bride in a dystopian theocracy (“The Handmaid’s Story”); Christy Martin, a pioneering boxer and out lesbian (“Christy”); Julia Cornwall, a teenager-turned-superhero (“Madame Net”); Millie Calloway, a scrappy younger lady with a style for vengeance (“The Housemaid“); Sister Cecilia, a nun subjected to unrelenting physique horror (“Immaculate“); Actuality Winner, a real-life whistleblower who leaked details about Russian interference within the 2016 US elections (“Actuality”); and extra.
Notably, a number of of Sweeney’s character arcs, together with in “Euphoria,” are formed by sexism, objectification, and systematic oppression. When GQ asked concerning the recurring theme of home abuse in Sweeney’s work, she replied together with her signature hedging. “I all the time communicate out about one thing that’s essential to me. And for me to talk out, I exploit artwork,” she mentioned. “Via my characters in my films, it is a approach for me to have the ability to do my half and unfold consciousness in several methods by my characters.”
One may argue that Sweeney’s lack of political conviction, notably in our hyper-polarized world, interprets extra as complicity than neutrality — and plenty of do. Sweeney’s persona has been described as conservative-coded, an assumption bolstered by BuzzFeed’s 2025 report that she registered as a Republican voter in Florida the earlier 12 months.
Nonetheless, Sweeney has been cautious to not pursue the trail of proudly conservative celebrities like Gina Carano or Roseanne Barr, who misplaced a task in a significant franchise and a bespoke ABC sitcom, respectively, after sharing transphobic and racist views on social media. Barr later blamed the “Roseanne” cancellation on her help of Trump: “That isn’t allowed in Hollywood,” she mentioned.
Sweeney could also be surrounded by costars and potential employers who oppose her political social gathering, however you would not understand it from her résumé. She walks a finer line than her willfully pigeonholed friends. Name it believable deniability or savvy self-marketing, however both approach, Sweeney is gathering paychecks from all sides.
