Zendaya Was ‘Buried Up To Her Neck’ For Dramatic Euphoria Season 3 Stunt

Euphoria creator Sam Levinson has heaped praise on Zendaya after she was really put through the ringer filming a stunt in the latest episode of the award-winning drama.

Zendaya’s character Rue has been on quite the journey so far in Euphoria’s third season, descending even further into a criminal underworld as she works to pay off her mounting debts.

In Monday’s instalment, Rue was kidnapped and dragged out to the desert, where she was buried up to the neck, in another nod to season three’s Western themes, before having dirt kicked in her face and being threatened with a croquet mallet by the crime boss Alamo.

Sam explained in a new behind-the-scenes video: “It’s sort of an old Western trope, you know, ‘we’re gonna bury you up to your neck’.

“It was a really complicated thing to pull off, because we wanted to shoot it practically – so it meant that we had to build some container with a box that Zendaya could duck under in the case of an earthquake.”

He continued: “I hand it to Z. She was a real trooper. She spent about three days buried up to her neck on the side of this hill.”

Meanwhile, NFL-star-turned-actor Marshawn Lynch – who plays G in the show – recalled: “Man, Z. That shit was wild as fuck. We had to kick dirt on her. And I’m like, ‘you cool with this?’. She’s like, ‘oh, yeah’. Just like it was another day at the office or something.

“And one of the set dressers said, ’just make sure when you kick the dirt on her, kick her from this pile, ’cause this is the clean dirt. And I’m like, ‘what the fuck do you mean?’. I ain’t never heard of no clean dirt before.”

This wasn’t the only stand-out scene in the episode, though.

As Sydney Sweeney’s Cassie continues her ascent from OnlyFans model to famous influencer, one sequence saw her destroying a miniature city in the style of Godzilla or Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman, a shoot she described as “probably the coolest thing I’ve ever done”.

Euphoria continues on Mondays on Now, Sky and HBO Max in the UK.