"Euphoria" star and model [1] Hunter Schafer recently revealed how her experience co-writing and co-producing the HBO show's "F*ck Anyone Who's Not a Sea Blob" episode, centreed around her 17-year-old character Jules, helped the actress process her own queerness and emerge from a depressive period in her life. In the one-hour special episode — which aired in 2021 to tide fans over until the Emmy-winning show's official season two [2] return in 2022 — Jules [3] sat down with her therapist to analyse her tumultuous childhood. Over the course of the episode, Jules dove into a number of topics, including the 17-year-old's not-so-great relationship with her mother, who also institutionalized her for depression [4].
In an interview with "i-D Magazine [6]," Schafer divulged the ways creating the episode helped the actress work through her inner turmoil. "I feel like it really just gave us room to go deeper into her mind and her subconscious and her headspace," Schafer told the publication. "I was in a very f*cking raw place, you know, it was the summer of 2020. Probably coming out of the worst depression I've ever had, and needing somewhere to put all of that energy. When I say that episode really became a lifeline, I mean it."
"The other half is just a 17-year-old trans girl, still figuring out who she is, and debating queerness within her head."
Through storyboarding and additional behind-the-scenes work on the episode, Schafer (who's openly trans) used her personal perspective to intimately explore her "Euphoria" character: a trans woman. This, in turn, helped Schafer navigate her own queerness. "Half of what Jules is talking about in that episode is rooted in the actual situation she's in with Rue [7], being really discontent in East Highland, and having just endured a crazy-*ss semester. The other half is just a 17-year-old trans girl, still figuring out who she is, and debating queerness within her head — what that means for her as a trans person," she said. "All of these new parts of herself that she's still uncovering, all intersect and create one big mess that she's trying to untangle, or find some sense within."
A part of the "untangling" Schafer did involved recognising that, while she's a trans woman, Jules had "framed [her] entire womanhood around men… when like, in reality, [she's] no longer interested in men." "I just had this conversation with my therapist the other day, actually, it was like: 'You're still putting yourself in boxes. You've worked your entire life to not be in boxes, and now you're doing it to yourself,'" she said. "It's this weird addiction I think we have as humans, to fit into something."
In exploring these personal aspects of herself through Jules, Schafer was able to highlight the emotional complexities that come with navigating queerness. "This is a really good opportunity to put some sh*t on TV that has not been on TV as far as like, what's actually going on in young trans people's heads beyond 'Oh, I'm scared what people are gonna think because I'm trans.' Like, real, spiritual, philosophical… Who am I? What does this all mean?"