‘Euphoria’: Minka Kelly on Playing the ‘Older, Wiser Version of Maddy’

Season 2 of HBO’s smash hit Euphoria has been a revolving door of fascinating side characters, background players, and guest appearances. Among the series’ new but instantly recognizable faces is Minka Kelly, who earned her television stripes playing the soft-spoken, romantically conflicted cheerleader Lyla Garrity on the NBC high school drama Friday Night Lights.

Now past the era of her career where she’s portraying teenagers while in her midtwenties, Kelly has entered the seedy adolescent world of Euphoria as one of the show’s elusive grown-ups—a glamorous housewife named Samantha who hires Maddy (Alexa Demie) as a babysitter.

With two episodes left in the season, Samantha and her relationship with Maddy remains a bit of a question mark. In the second episode, we’re introduced to her in a tense and surprisingly sensual manner. After a night out with her husband, she returns home where Maddy has secretly just taken a bunch of selfies in Samantha’s designer clothes. We think Maddy’s left some evidence of her trespassing behind when Samantha beckons the high schooler to her closet, but she only asks that Maddy unzip her gown. The camera, however, captures Samantha giving Maddy an oddly affectionate rub on the hand, as she tells her she’s “so sweet.”

In a longer scene in last week’s episode, she invites Maddy to get drunk with her and go for a late-night swim while engaging in some standard girl talk about relationships. Save for the whole “supplying a minor with alcohol” component, their dynamic seems pretty innocuous, at least by this program’s slippery moral standards. But fans of the show are still curious about their new bond, considering the amount of time we’ve spent this season watching Maddy frolicking around her employer’s mansion.

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According to Kelly, Samantha was originally supposed to appear in just one episode. Showrunner Sam Levinson had written the role with her in mind, and as a Euphoria superfan, she eagerly accepted the offer without much information about the character.

“I didn’t speak with him until our first day of working together,” Kelly told The Daily Beast. “So it was really just a leap of faith because all I saw was just one paragraph of dialogue that didn’t really say much about this character. But because I am such a fan of his work and his storytelling, I didn’t care.”

After his first day of filming with the 41-year-old actress, Levinson thought the dynamic between Maddy and Samantha deserved more exploration, ultimately extending Kelly’s role to four episodes total.

“He started thinking there’s something more here and then later realized, ‘Oh, I think the purpose of this character is, she’s going to be the older, wiser version of Maddy,’” Kelly said. “I think he felt after working together that there could be a little bit more of a meaningful exchange between us that would display that.”

Like many of her Euphoria colleagues, Kelly describes her experience shooting with the director as improvisational and off the cuff, but claims she “thrive[s] in that kind of environment.” On her first day, Levinson scrapped what he originally prepared for her and threw out a few brief exchanges that “weren’t pivotal to moving the story along.”

“That really excited me because that’s how I was trained in the school of Peter Berg,” Kelly said, referencing the executive producer of Friday Night Lights. “It really excites me to be on my toes that way. And it also makes me feel really safe to be with a director who knows exactly what he wants and will not compromise his vision for the sake of time or upsetting someone.”

Levinson isn’t totally unaccommodating, though, as Kelly recently revealed in an interview with Vanity Fair. In the scene where Maddy unzips Samantha’s dress, he originally wanted the gown to completely fall off of Kelly and expose her body. But Kelly didn’t feel comfortable being naked on her first day of shooting, and, according to her, Levinson immediately obliged and changed course.

Despite that anecdote being a decent example of a director listening to his actors, it's already receiving some negative attention on social media, as two other Euphoria actresses, Sydney Sweeney and Chloe Cherry, have shared similar stories of asking Levinson to pull back on their nude scenes.

But even with all the last-minute changes and uncertainty about the direction of her character, Kelly says she never lost confidence in Levinson’s vision.

“I just knew whatever it was that I’m not seeing [would] be good,” Kelly said. “And there’s just some creators that you are a fan of that you don’t need proof. It’s just, I’ll show up for you. Let’s do this.”

While Kelly may not have the tear-jerking moments and shocking material that some of the show’s major players do (at least, not yet), there’s an engrossing, self-referential quality to her presence on Euphoria, as she represents a previous class of iconic teen television, from before streaming changed the game. Almost 16 years out from Friday Night Lights’ debut, Kelly says that thanks to Netflix and other streamers, that sort of nostalgic connection and cultural cachet with viewers “doesn’t seem to stop giving.”

“It’s a really wonderful feeling,” Kelly says. “You know, I joke. People will tell me now, ‘Oh my God, I just started watching Friday Night Lights.’ And I’m like, where were you all when we were airing and barely able to stay on the air at the time? I’m glad you’re all enjoying the show now.”

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She continued, “It’s a real humbling honor to feel like you’re a part of something so special. But also it’s hard to really even grasp that when you’re in it. I think you can have more perspective on that thing when you have some distance from it, you know? But when you’re in it, even when we were shooting it, we had no idea how special the thing was. We were in our little bubble just making a show about football.”

Kelly is one of several actors whose career was propelled by FNL, including Taylor Kitsch, Michael B. Jordan, and Jesse Plemons, who was just nominated for an Oscar for The Power of The Dog. She describes Plemons’ meteoric rise to one of the most in-demand film stars over the past few years as “inspiring.”

“It’s the coolest thing ever,” Kelly said. “You watch Jesse, and your heart just pings with joy because there’s nothing better than good things happening to good people. He’s just one of the most solid, salt-of-the-earth, good human beings in the world. And you just root for him.”

Like Plemons, Kelly has remained booked and busy, oscillating between film, television, and even a few music videos in her days following the network hit. And her role on Euphoria, which has amassed record-breaking viewership in its second season, will certainly provide a new level of exposure, whether or not her inclusion on the show has any real payoff. Regardless, Kelly seems grateful to be along for the ride.

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