As an avid Euphoria fan, I admittedly have a soft spot for Cassie, one of the key characters on the show, played brilliantly by Sydney Sweeney.

Abandoned by her heroin addict father, Cassie constantly seeks validation from boys through sex and often finds herself in compromising situations as she battles her insecurities and the issues affecting her.

Her story is one that many, in some shape or form, can relate to – but the character, and Sweeney as a result, has also come under criticism for the amount of nudity featured on the show.

Scrolling through Twitter, it’s not hard to find comments calling out and mocking the nudity on the series.

But in a recent interview with The Independent, the actor brilliantly highlights that the backlash she faces is something many men don’t have to deal with in the industry.

“When a guy has a sex scene or shows his body, he still wins awards and gets praise,” she told the publication. “But the moment a girl does it, it’s completely different.”

In the interview, Sweeney said she is proud of the roles she has played, from Euphoria to her role in The White Lotus, which gained critical acclaim.

“With The White Lotus, I felt like people were finally recognising the hard work I’ve been doing,” she told the newspaper.

“This is something that has bothered me for a while. I’m very proud of my work in Euphoria. I thought it was a great performance. But no one talks about it because I got naked. 

“I do The White Lotus and all of a sudden critics are paying attention. People are loving me. They’re going, ‘Oh my God, what’s she doing next?’ I was like, ‘Did you not see that in Euphoria? Did you not see that in The Handmaid’s Tale?’.”

Sweeney adds that she feels there is a definite “stigma against actresses who get naked on-screen” and this is also reflected in the way she has been treated in real life, with people tagging her younger brother in posts that include her nude scenes from Euphoria.

“That was the most hurtful thing that anybody could do,” she told The Independent. “What I do is completely separate from my family. My character is completely separate to me. It’s just so disrespectful and distressing.” How does she cope with it? “I don’t think there is actually a coping mechanism to be honest. You just get used to it.”

Being typecast and judged as a woman in Hollywood is something that many actors know all too well, but as Sweeney mentions, she is proud of her work (and rightly so) and she says she has never been made to feel uncomfortable while shooting nude scenes in Euphoria, where there’s always an intimacy coordinator on set.

“Sam [Levinson, the screenwriter] is amazing.

“There are moments where Cassie was supposed to be shirtless and I would tell Sam, ‘I don’t really think that’s necessary here.’ He was like, ‘OK, we don’t need it’. I’ve never felt like Sam has pushed it on me or was trying to get a nude scene into an HBO show. When I didn’t want to do it, he didn’t make me.”

Image: Getty