Both Spider-Man: No Way Home stars Andrew Garfield and Zendaya were present in Variety's Actors on Actors segment, where they discussed Zendaya's HBO series Euphoria and Garfield's latest project Under the Banner of Heaven.
Garfield straightforwardly offered praises for Zendaya's performance on HBO Max's hit series Euphoria, whereas Zendaya was grateful, Garfield was particularly impressed with the actress's performance in the second season's Episode 5.
"I think it was Episode 5. It’s one of the most relentless episodes of television I’ve ever seen," Garfield said. "I’m starting to get to know you better, but to have access to that kind of awfulness and the damage and pain, and to make it so human. I was like, “Are you OK?” How did you make sure you were OK while you were doing that?"
"It’s tough," Zendaya replied. "And I thought what was actually quite sweet was when that episode did air, I did get a lot of messages from people checking in on me, which I appreciated."
Garfield added, "Makes me want to cry. I didn’t feel like there was any acting. It felt like you were living through something in such an authentic way."
In response, Zendaya broke down her process to film Euphoria Season 2 Episode 5, where her character Rue suffers from a tremendous emotional breakdown.
"It’s hard to say that there’s any specific process for that. I feel like when it comes to Rue, at least for me, my experience with her is I’ve had the privilege of playing her for a while," Zendaya explained. "So I’ve had the luxury of living in her skin for a bit. And the closeness that I share with Sam is huge, because Rue is very much based on him as a teenager. Rue has become an amalgamation of my experiences, his experiences and our collective pain — and seeing through the eyes of an addict. I think the approach was to try it as human as possible without ever shying away from the devastation and the ugliness of what that can create. I had actually been very afraid to shoot that episode. It had been written for a while before the pandemic, and I was dreading having to do it."
Euphoria's Season 2 Episode 5: Stand Still Like The Hummingbird proves that Zendaya has grown into one of the most promising young actresses of our generation. The episode follows Rue's emotional breakdown after her mother forced her to go back to rehab, while also struggling through an intense drug relapse. The whole episode highlights Zendaya's range as an actress as Rue goes through an emotional roller coaster ride, from being extremely enraged to being anguished all throughout the episode.
Andrew Garfield's latest outing as the web-slinging hero in Spider-Man: No Way Home is streaming on Disney+, while Zendaya's Euphoria is available to stream on HBO Max.
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