Hunter Schafer got his start in Euphoria playing Jules Vaughn, a trans high school student and love interest of Zendaya’s character, Rue. But since then the actress has been intentional about making sure her identity as a trans person doesn’t define her career.
“It’s a privilege, but it’s been very intentional,” he said. GQ. “I’ve been offered tons of trans roles and I just don’t want to do it. I do not want to talk about that”.
The actress explained her reasoning by saying, “I know for a fact that I’m one of the most famous trans people in the media right now, and I feel a sense of responsibility, and maybe a little guilt, about that.” no longer be a spokesperson. But ultimately, I really believe that not making it the center of what I’m doing will allow me to go further. And I think going further and doing incredible things, for the benefit of the ‘movement’, will be much more useful than talking about it all the time.”
In keeping with this goal, Schafer even admitted that he sometimes avoids saying “trans” during interviews.
“As soon as I say it, it goes off,” he said. “It took me a while to learn that and it also took me a while to learn that I don’t want to be [reduced to] that, and ultimately I find it degrading to me and what I want to do.”
Schafer confessed that she was “sick of talking about it.”
“I worked really hard to get to where I am, to get through these really difficult points in my transition, and now I just want to be a girl and finally move on,” she said.
But the actress reflected fondly on her role in Euphoriawhich he achieved when he was only 18 years old.
“She’s deeply intertwined with who I am as a person and who I was at that age,” she said of her character, Jules. “She feels like an artifact of my younger self.”
For now, it is starting to expand from Euphoria and launch a new career in film. She recently starred in The Hunger Games prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Songbirds and the Snakes. Its next feature, Cuckoopremieres on May 3.
“Now that I’ve discovered the craft of acting and it’s not this scary thing that I feel like I’ve been thrown into, I understand it,” Schafer said. “I can really find some levity and joy in it.”
