List of Euphoria characters


Euphoria is an American teen drama television series created by Sam Levinson, which centres on a group of dysfunctional high school students at East Highland High School. The series premiered on June 16, 2019, on HBO.

Appearances

; Key

Main characters

Ruby "Rue" Bennett

Rue was born on September 14, 2001, 3 days after 9/11. At the time of the first season, she is a recovering teenage drug addict who is fresh out of rehab and struggling to find her place in the world. Sarcastic and introverted, she serves as the narrator for the series. She lives with her mom and sister. Her dad died from cancer before the start of the series. She is best friends with Lexi, having known her since preschool. The plot of the first season mainly revolves around her relationship with Jules. The second season finds her continuing to struggle with addiction as she becomes involved with drug trafficking, and enters an official relationship with Jules.

Alexis "Lexi" Howard

Lexi was born on January 11, 2001. She is Rue's childhood best friend, and Cassie's younger sister. She spends most of her teenage years in the shadow of her big sister, always feeling like an outsider and an observer of her own life.
Determined to do more and to finally step into the spotlight, she creates a play in the second season, and bases it on everything that has happened around her. At the same time, she grows closer to Fezco after discovering an unexpected compatibility, including some unusual, shared interests.

Fezco

Fez is a local drug dealer with a close, sibling-like relationship with Rue. He was raised by his grandmother who is now disabled. He lives with Ashtray, whom he considers his business partner, and even though they do not appear to be related, he treats him like a brother. He starts a camaraderie with Lexi in Season 2.

Cal Jacobs

Cal is Nate's strict, demanding father with a double life. He is married to and fathers three children with Marsha, his high school girlfriend. However, he has one-night stands with men and transgender youths, which he records with a hidden camera. He leaves his family and gets arrested in Season 2.

Madeleine "Maddy" Perez

Confident, combative and popular, Maddy is Nate's on-and-off girlfriend and later ex-girlfriend. She has a turbulent relationship with her family and was emotionally and physically abused by Nate while they were together. Her greatest fear is ending up in a loveless relationship like her parents, so she often excuses Nate's acts of violence as proof of his passion and love for her.
Despite her hotheadedness, she is kind and values her close friends, like Kat and BB, as well as Rue, Jules and Lexi. Cassie was once her closest friend, before Cassie betrayed Maddy by having a secret relationship with Nate in the second season. Maddy ends their friendship and her remaining friends support her decision. The season ends with a physical confrontation between the two of them after Cassie interrupts Lexi's play and assaults one of the cast members. Afterwards, Cassie's remorse for her actions only furthers Maddy's resentment.

Nathaniel "Nate" Jacobs

Nate is a high school athlete whose anger issues mask his sexual insecurities. He was traumatized as a child after viewing his father's collection of pornography, which featured him having sex with male and transgender prostitutes. He has harbored an unspecified fixation on Jules. He has an on-off and toxic relationship with Maddy during season 1, and he starts a secret relationship with Cassie, which damages the girls' friendship, in season 2.
Nate often has dangerous outbursts of anger and violence, of which Maddy is usually on the receiving end, such as when he chokes her in season 1 and threatens her with a gun in season 2.

Katherine "Kat" Hernandez

Kat was born on August 15, 2002. She is a girl fighting for body positivity while exploring her sexuality. She is a plus-sized teenage girl with chin-length hair, ivory skin, and dark brown eyes. At the beginning of the first season, she wears cat-eye glasses and her everyday clothes often consist of average shirts, tops, and dresses, preferring minimalist makeup looks.

Leslie Bennett

Leslie is Rue and Gia's mother. After losing her husband, Leslie takes care of her children on her own.

Georgia "Gia" Bennett

  • portrayed by Storm Reid
  • * Hyla Rayne Fontenot
  • * Nyran Hepburn and Ashton Hunsberger
Gia was born in late 2005 and is Rue's caring and loyal younger sister. The summer before Rue's junior year, Gia found her overdosing and choking on a pool of vomit, which traumatized her.

Jules Vaughn

Jules is a transgender girl who enters into a turbulent relationship with Rue after moving into town. She has a strained relationship with her mother, who placed her in a psychiatric hospital against her will when she was 11. Free-spirited and kind, as well as emotional and impulsive, she often finds herself bearing the weight of Rue's addiction. In the second season, she cheats on Rue with Elliot.

Christopher "Chris" McKay

  • portrayed by Algee Smith
  • * Yohance & Zakai Biagas-Bey
McKay is a young football player and Cassie's ex-boyfriend who is having difficulties adjusting to college. He is hazed by his fraternity brothers at a party and ends up getting Cassie pregnant which leads to her having an abortion.

Cassandra "Cassie" Howard

Cassie is a sweet and popular girl who enjoys ice skating and is Lexi's older sister. Facing objectification from a young age, as well as her father leaving her family, has left the need for male validation as her Achilles' heel. She has had multiple past relationships which often ended in revenge porn of her being spread. She is Maddy's closest friend and confidant, even having a stronger bond with Maddy than with Lexi.
In the first season, she enters a relationship with McKay, who she later breaks up with after he gets her pregnant causing her to have an abortion. Seeking comfort, she engages in a secret relationship with Nate in the second season, causing her to lose her sense of self and eventually ruining her friendship with Maddy when the truth comes out. The betrayal causes Cassie to be ostracized and she isolates herself further from everyone. In the season finale, Cassie has a public meltdown in relation to Lexi's original school play and Nate ending their relationship. Trying to embrace her self-proclaimed title as “the villain”, it leads to further ridicule from her fellow students and a physical altercation with Maddy.

Ali Muhammad

Ali is a man in recovery from substance use disorder who often speaks at Rue's Narcotics Anonymous meetings and eventually becomes her sponsor.

Ashtray

Ashtray is Fez's "little brother" and a drug dealer; he is about 12 years old.
He is a recurring character throughout season 1 but becomes a main character in season 2. He is killed after being shot in the head by a SWAT team member during a police raid at the house he shares with Fez.

Ethan Daley

Ethan is Kat's love interest who becomes her boyfriend.

Elliot

Elliot is a classmate and new friend of Rue's, who comes between her and Jules. He is also a musician.

Laurie

Laurie is a former school teacher turned drug dealer. Unlike her employees, Laurie is calm and soft-spoken, however, she claims to be ruthless when it comes to making her money back. She is addicted to OxyContin, and it is implied that her addiction has forced her into prostitution to earn money for drugs to avoid withdrawal.

Faye

Custer's girlfriend who stays with Fezco and Ashtray after she is wanted by the police for pushing her superintendent off the motel balcony. She is initially presented as a somewhat self-centered airhead who is rude towards Rue after she expresses discomfort over doing heroin; however, later in the series, she is shown to be kinder and forms a friendship with Fez. After learning her boyfriend is cooperating with the police against Fez, she is conflicted due to her split loyalties. Shortly before the police raid Fez's apartment, Faye signals to Fez to warn him that Custer may be recording the conversation.

Supporting characters

Recurring

  • Suze Howard, portrayed by Alanna Ubach, Lexi and Cassie's mother. She and Gus, her ex-husband, separated the night before Cassie started ninth grade. Although Suze allowed Gus to see their daughters on weekends, he visited less and less over time and eventually stopped visiting altogether. Despite being almost constantly inebriated, she acts as a loving and supportive mother.
  • Tyler Clarkson, portrayed by Lukas Gage, a college student who is brutally attacked by Nate for having sex with Maddy at a party
  • David Vaughn, portrayed by John Ales, Jules' father.
  • Daniel Dimarco, portrayed by Keean Johnson and Isaac Arellanes, a junior who dated Kat in sixth grade and later tries to hook up with Cassie
  • Marsha Jacobs, portrayed by Paula Marshall and Rebecca Louise, Nate and Aaron's mother and Cal's wife.
  • Aaron Jacobs, portrayed by Zak Steiner, Nate's older brother, who is considered a "fuck-up" by his father and brother.
  • Custer, portrayed by Tyler Chase, assistant to Mouse, Fez's supplier
  • Robert Bennett, portrayed by Bruce Wexler, Rue's father, seen in flashbacks, who died from cancer when Rue was 13.
  • Gus Howard, portrayed by Nick Blood, Lexi and Cassie's father, seen in flashbacks, is a painkiller addict who is estranged from the family.
  • Samantha, portrayed by Minka Kelly, Maddy's employer at her new babysitting job