One of 2019’s biggest screen surprises was the premiere of the HBO series The euphoria. The teen drama features a cast of relatively low young actors, including the lead star Zendaya, who gives a tour de force performance as the shows narrator Rue Bennett. As a young high school student in the suburbs, Rue finds solace and satisfaction in the nothingness of oblivion, and their habit of ingesting any medication to pursue their land in the rehabilitation centre to which he goes when the show begins. But as Rue introduces us to his family and friends and takes us along her tumultuous journey to recovery, it is painfully obvious that the drugs are the simplest element of your life.
While the likelihood of the Rue of the addiction comes from the creator and cowriter Sam Levinson personal experiences as an addictit’s the raw brilliance of Zendaya portrait that makes the viewers really care about it. Yes, the street is a foul-mouthed, ill-tempered, lying teenager addicted to drugs, but the 23-year-old actress plays with an underlying vulnerability and fragility that makes us want to fight for it.
There is a lot about the Rue that we have not yet discovered — which is expected to be revealed in the second season of the series — but Zendaya’s acting in The euphoria‘s first year of the season leaves a lot to live up to. So, in honor of the role of a lifetime and Zendaya properly breaking down our expectations to bits, we’ve rounded up some of their best scenes of the first season. Keep scrolling for nine moments that showed Zendaya has the range and landed of our queen on her first Emmy Award nomination.
