As Apatow&rsquo;s character Lexi steps into the limelight in 'Euphoria' season two, the actor is branching out into new roles of her own.

Photography Carlotta Kohl Styled in AMI Paris by Ryan Young

Maude Apatow may be a child of Hollywood&mdash;the offspring of comedy superstars Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann, to be precise&mdash;but the 24-year-old is still getting used to 'Euphoria'-levels of attention. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t even really think about it, or else I get too nervous,&rdquo; she says of the white-hot hullabaloo around the hit HBO teen drama: &ldquo;It scares me.&rdquo; She&rsquo;s not being coy: even a cross-country Zoom interview with L'Officiel causes angst enough to warrant an 11th-hour change to a phone call. If her star-making turn in the second season of the show is any indication, however, she&rsquo;s going to have to get used to the idea of more screen time, stat.
It takes a lot to break out of an ensemble cast&mdash;especially a murderers&rsquo; row of Gen Z talent like Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, and Hunter Schafer. So when Apatow first appeared in season one of Sam Levinson&rsquo;s HBO hit, her role (Lexi Howard, the bookish former best friend of Zendaya&rsquo;s character, Rue) didn&rsquo;t exactly make a splash amongst all of the drug and sex and digital-era-fueled mayhem for which the series is known. But in the show's sophomore effort, Apatow&rsquo;s Lexi emerges with a character arc (involving a Shakespeare-style play-within-a-play, no less!) that pushes her to the front of the plot&mdash;and some of her castmates&rsquo; characters to the edge.
'Euphoria' is a little campy, sure, even without the off-Broadway-level stage production, Lexi cooks up: a tumult of love triangles, substance abuse, full-frontal male nudity, radical bursts of violence, heartlessness, heartbreak&mdash;all shot through what can feel like an early-aughts music video filter. As Apatow notes during her chat with L'Officiel, its success as a show is less inaccurately depicting late adolescence than accurately depicting the way late adolescence can seem while you&rsquo;re in it. &ldquo;In high school, everything feels so dramatic and so important. If I look back at certain things I went through, it&rsquo;s like, why did I even care about that? But it felt at the time like the most important thing in the world. And that&rsquo;s how Sam writes Lexi,&rdquo; Apatow says. &ldquo;The stakes aren&rsquo;t as high comparatively, but also they are. She&rsquo;s taking her stuff just as seriously as everyone else is theirs.&rdquo;
L'Officiel speaks with Apatow about why comedies are harder than dramas, losing friends during her own high school theatre-directing debacle, and her new on-screen romance.

ALESSANDRA CODINHA: Hi Maude! You&rsquo;re in New York right now, right? Are you living there?
MAUDE APATOW: I am. I&rsquo;m kind of back and forth. I&rsquo;ve always wanted to move to New York, but I work in LA, and my family is there, so it hasn&rsquo;t been the right moment yet. I actually just got a place here, so hopefully, I&rsquo;ll make the official move soon. I&rsquo;m in the West Village&mdash;I love it so much. I feel like, just growing up in LA, I went to the same school my whole life, and I just feel like I needed a change. To start my own&hellip;life. 
AC: Congratulations on 'Euphoria'&nbsp;season two. It&rsquo;s such a huge social media hit. Do you follow the fan response?
MA: [Giggles.] It&rsquo;s crazy. I still can&rsquo;t believe that so many people watch it. We shot the first season and we were like: Hopefully, it turns out well! Hopefully, people watch it! It still&mdash;I can&rsquo;t even really think about it, or else I get too nervous. It scares me. But it&rsquo;s so nice that people are so nice about it. People make drawings. Every time I see fanart I&rsquo;m like, Oh my god, that&rsquo;s the craziest thing ever. Someone is drawing me?! 
AC: And you have the other thing, which is, forgive me for sounding 100 years old, people &lsquo;shipping&rsquo; your character, Lexi, and Angus Cloud&rsquo;s character, Fezco.
MA: Fexi! I know; it&rsquo;s a terrible shipper name. I love Angus. I think he&rsquo;s such a good actor. There&rsquo;s something about him; he&rsquo;s so fun to watch: he&rsquo;s so good, and charismatic. Obviously, people were very shocked by the romantic overtones between Lexi and Fez, the most unlikely duo, but I think it weirdly makes sense&hellip;they&rsquo;re sweet together. He&rsquo;s so tough but also so sensitive, and she thinks he&rsquo;s fascinating. He&rsquo;s got a whole Tony Soprano thing going on. 
AC: Lexi has a major arc this season, especially compared to season one. Did you know that would be happening from the beginning? I can&rsquo;t tell if 'Euphoria'&nbsp;is one of those shows that began with several seasons already plotted out, or if it&rsquo;s a more seat-of-the-pants operation.
MA: I&rsquo;d say it&rsquo;s sort of both. Sam [Levinson] told me when I signed on that season two is where I would have my arc, so I knew that going into it. But he is such a perfectionist that if you give him any extra time he&rsquo;ll want to change everything to the last possible second. I think because Sam is constantly writing no one gets too attached to anything because it&rsquo;s constantly changing. When we had our scripts for season two before the pandemic, they were really different. He really reworked a lot. It&rsquo;s not totally different, but it got a lot better. I hope that doesn&rsquo;t sound like I&rsquo;m implying it wasn&rsquo;t good&mdash;he&rsquo;s just always improving everything. You think, How does this get better? And somehow it does.

AC: Lexi&rsquo;s role is really meta this season&mdash;she spends the season creating and then putting on a play about her family and friends that is basically a stage version of 'Euphoria'&mdash;only she narrates, not Rue. She becomes essentially the stand-in for the viewer, the &ldquo;normal&rdquo; foil for all this chaos; but out of the entire cast you probably had one of the least traditionally &ldquo;normal&rdquo; upbringings, given your parents&rsquo; fame. And in real life both you and Sam have directors for fathers. [Barry Levinson directed Diner, Bugsy, and Rainman, among other films.] There are a lot of layers!
MA: Right. I think Lexi is a version of myself that I&rsquo;ve grown out of, maybe me when I was in, like, ninth grade. A way more neurotic, anxious version of myself than I was in high school&mdash;though I definitely was an aggressive theatre kid. I think Sam really understands me, and he kind of writes in my voice. A lot of the play stuff for the show came from conversations with Sam about my experiences in the theatre department. I produced our senior sketch show, and I took it really, really seriously. I lost a lot of friends during the show&mdash;but it was only because I wanted it to be good! I cared so much! When I think back to that time, I was finishing high school, all of my friends who&rsquo;d gone to the same school my entire life were all leaving each other&hellip;I think the [sketch] show was the one thing I could hold onto, and I channelled all that energy in my head, combining leaving school and leaving my friends and making the show good, and that probably wasn&rsquo;t the best thing to do. It&rsquo;s the same with Lexi. Her best friend is falling apart, her sister&rsquo;s a nightmare, she can&rsquo;t do anything about it, and she wants to so badly. And so she channels all that into the show because it&rsquo;s the only thing she can control in her life. 
AC: There&rsquo;s been talk of a 'Euphoria'&nbsp;effect on the runways, and with retailers&mdash;things like elaborate glitter makeup and early-aughts-influenced candy-coloured crop tops and cut-out dresses. Fashion on the show is almost like its own character. Has it affected your style at all?
MA: Has the show changed my style? I don&rsquo;t know! Maybe a little bit. I&rsquo;ve never been super bold with my fashion. I think some people can really express themselves through their clothes, and I don&rsquo;t know if I&rsquo;m good at that. I&rsquo;m still trying to figure that out. Lexi is probably a more extreme version of my style.

"Lexi is a version of myself that I&rsquo;ve grown out of...A way more neurotic, anxious version of myself than I was in high school."

AC: Did you always want to be an actor?
MA: Yeah. I started doing theatre at school when I was in second grade, and I did it all through school. I kind of always knew I wanted to be an actor. My parents obviously worked in the industry, and they showed me a lot of movies that definitely inspired me, but theatre was a huge part of why I wanted to become an actor. I remember seeing my first musical and thinking it was the greatest thing I&rsquo;d ever seen. I was so overwhelmed and moved. I saw 'Hairspray' and it just blew my mind. Since then I was like, Oh my god, that looks like the most fun thing in the world. Even just watching something as an audience member is so amazing. Musicals had a big influence on me. 
AC: Do you sing?
MA: Yeah!
 AC: So musicals may be in your future?
MA: I mean, I hope so.

AC: I know that you were in some of your parents&rsquo; movies ['Knocked Up' and 'This is 40'] when you were really little, playing your mother&rsquo;s daughter. Do you ever watch those movies now?
MA: No. Never. I don&rsquo;t know why. It&rsquo;s still not long enough. I&rsquo;m still so embarrassed.
 AC: What was it like being directed by your dad?
MA: I don&rsquo;t remember really from when I was really little. My dad&rsquo;s like my mentor and we&rsquo;re really, really close, so getting to work with him [most recently in films like 2020&rsquo;s 'The King of Staten Island'] is a really special experience. He has a very unique way of working, creating loose, collaborative sets and improv, and the way that he works is unique. I feel like I learned a lot from watching him work. 
AC: When it came to your adult career, were your parents encouraging: &lsquo;Yes, Hollywood&rsquo;s a great industry; definitely work in it,&rsquo; or more like, &lsquo;Please, please grow up to be an astrophysicist, or literally anything else&rsquo;?
MA: They were always very supportive. They very much just wanted me to do what made me happy. Though I didn&rsquo;t do any work on my own until I was finishing high school&mdash;they really wanted me to stay in school. I think I really wanted to get to work when I was younger; I was so super ready to go. I was so mad at them at the time for making me finish high school, but I&rsquo;m glad I did.

AC: I read that you want to direct.
MA: I do, definitely, yeah. My dad has always encouraged me to write. As an actor you have such little control: you show up to work, and you do your work, and that&rsquo;s that, and you hope they take a good take and edit it well. It&rsquo;s out of your hands. And he always said you should learn how to write and direct so you can make things for yourself and have more control over what you&rsquo;re doing and make something that plays to your strengths. I&rsquo;ve watched that [advice play out] with Amy Schumer and Lena Dunham and he&rsquo;s always encouraged me to do that. So I made this short [2017&rsquo;s 'Don&rsquo;t Mind Alice'] that I wrote and directed that I was in. I love directing. That&rsquo;s one of my ultimate goals. 
AC: Are you writing now?
MA: I just sold my first script over the summer. I don&rsquo;t know if I&rsquo;m allowed to say anything about it, but it&rsquo;s insane; I&rsquo;m very excited. 
AC: As a writer/director and an actor then, why do you think 'Euphoria'&nbsp;is such a hit?
MA: I think obviously it&rsquo;s extremely heightened; it&rsquo;s a very heightened reality, but there are also parts about it that feel really real. I think there are characters and stories for everyone to relate to, not just teenagers. It also takes teenage anxiety and struggles very seriously, and it&rsquo;s not mocking or looking down on anyone. I feel like, for a teenager, that&rsquo;s pretty cool to watch. 
AC: Is that important to you? To do real stories that tackle real issues?
MA: Yeah, I mean obviously. But all stories&mdash;oh, that&rsquo;s such a horrible quote: &lsquo;all stories are important!&rsquo; But I think there&rsquo;s a time and place for every different kind of movie. In my life, people have come up to my parents and said that something they&rsquo;d done had helped them through a hard time and made them laugh, and they were really grateful. You see moments like that and it reminds you why you do what you do. With 'Euphoria', I think maybe it&rsquo;s the same thing. Some kids will DM us sometimes or comment and say stuff like that, that the show made them feel less alone, and they relate to it. I feel like that&rsquo;s why we do this.

"'Euphoria'&nbsp;is a very heightened reality, but there are also parts about it that feel really real."

AC: Do you find yourself leaning more towards drama versus comedies, or the reverse, given your parents?
MA: I would love to do all of it. Comedies are very hard to make really good. I definitely want to get better at that, better at improvising. Even though I grew up around that, I definitely have so much more to learn. There are many more improvements to be made around my improv skills. 
AC: If you could do anything, any project, is there something you&rsquo;re dying to do?
MA: A musical. I would love to do a musical. Any type of musical!

AC: Are there any actors you particularly look up to?
MA: I look at someone like Emma Stone, who&rsquo;s so funny, but she&rsquo;s also such a great actress. I saw her on Broadway in Cabaret, and she was so amazing. That&rsquo;s the dream. I just think she&rsquo;s so funny and great and talented. I really look up to her. 
AC: Are you getting stopped at all on the street in New York now that the second season is out?
MA: Not me being like, I haven&rsquo;t really been outside? [Laughs.] I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;ve really had that. But I also have been working every day and then when I&rsquo;m not I don&rsquo;t leave the house, because it&rsquo;s freezing. 
AC: And these days we&rsquo;re all wearing masks, so it&rsquo;s okay if you&rsquo;re not being chased down the street by adoring fans. Give it time.
MA: I will.

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Maude Apatow Takes Centre Stage

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