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Singer-songwriter Dominic Fike completely blew his first audition for HBO’s hit series Euphoria because he was tripping balls on shrooms, according to a recent interview.
Euphoria, which is based on an Israeli miniseries of the same name, follows the story of Rue Bennett, a recovering teen drug addict, and her fellow high school students. In the new version, Bennett is played by Zendaya, another actor-musician who is also an executive producer of the show.
Sam Levinson, the show’s creator and writer, reportedly based the script on his own personal experiences with anxiety, depression, and drug addiction. The new version of the show sparked quite a bit of controversy due to its depiction of teen drug use and sex, but that didn’t stop it from becoming an immediate success. The series is now the second-most watched show in HBO history, after Game of Thrones.
This January, HBO dropped the second season of the show. The very first episode features Fike, who plays Elliot, a stoner musician who gets involved in a love triangle with Bennett and Jules (played by Hunter Schafer). But according to a new interview with GQ, Fike actually had a shot at playing one of the lead roles in the show’s first season.
Euphoria’s casting director apparently reached out to Fike back in 2018 to audition for the show. The singer, who had never acted or even auditioned for a role before, gave it a shot, and actually made it through several callbacks. But when he was asked to come in for a final chemistry read with costar Barbie Ferreira, he decided to try out a bit of method acting.
Since the show features drugs so heavily, Fike decided to eat a shit ton of magic mushrooms before the final call. And it didn’t go well. “I started peaking right when me and Barbie were reading,” he explained to GQ.
As the shrooms kicked in, Fike began to see the words of the script dance around, and then he became convinced that Levinson was wearing a dress. “I looked at him and I was like, ‘Are you wearing a dress right now?’ It was crazy. I started making fun of everybody in the room.”
Obviously, Fike didn’t get the part, and his agents were pissed. “They were like, ‘What. The. Fuck.’,” he told GQ. But as bad as that audition was, it looks like he didn’t burn any bridges. Levinson was still apparently convinced enough to give the singer a second chance, and cast him in the second season. A third season of Euphoria has now been approved, and Fike is reportedly still on the cast.
Maybe the mushrooms got him the gig afterall.
