Essay: Farewell to Maddy Perez, the complicated Latina baddie who dominated 'Euphoria'

It was the summertime of 2019, and HBO’s caller gritty teen play was everywhere. Love it oregon hatred it, “Euphoria” was unavoidable, and everything from its soon-to-be megastars to the clothes, constitution and wide aesthetic of its neon-lit beingness was seeping retired from the confines of the surface and into the existent world.

And astatine the halfway of this vibe shift, with raven-black hairsbreadth and eyeliner arsenic razor-sharp arsenic her comebacks, was Mexican American histrion Alexa Demie arsenic Maddy Perez.

On paper, Maddy shouldn’t person been a peculiarly singular character. How often person we seen the fashionable precocious schoolhouse cheerleader navigate a toxic narration with the school’s blistery jock? And however routinely person we seen a Latina relegated to the background, oregon sidelined erstwhile she’s fulfilled her relation arsenic a foil — the temptress, the toxic girlfriend, the temperamental champion person — for the blonder, whiter characters onscreen to “overcome” arsenic they regenerate her successful the spotlight?

Make nary mistake: Maddy was a foil. In a amusement built astir characters who fought to obscure astir each facet of their existent interior lives, Maddy was refreshingly, sometimes brutally herself. Who tin hide the infinitesimal she slow-clapped her mode to infamy successful Season 1, parting a carnival assemblage successful her purple I.AM.GIA acceptable arsenic she announced to her boyfriend’s parents, “I’m not expected to beryllium present close now, due to the fact that I’m dressed similar a hooker, and nary of you similar me.”

Barbie Ferreira, from left, Alexa Demie and Sydney Sweeney successful “Euphoria.”

(Eddy Chen/HBO)

In little susceptible hands, her bitchiness, her vanity, her vindictiveness would person made her one-dimensional. But Demie made her thing more, imbuing Maddy with a benignant of gravity and extent that made her arsenic infuriating to ticker arsenic she was exciting. Through her, Maddy personified a caller benignant of Latina baddie — 1 who defied constraints, and carried herself with a assurance that asked the remainder of the satellite to conscionable her connected her terms.

As the show’s narrator, Rue Bennett (Zendaya), says successful Season 1: “Maddy knew who she was from a precise aboriginal property … She ne'er knew precisely what it was. She conscionable knew that she had thing special. Something intangible. Something immeasurable. And she had that confidence.”

Central to Maddy’s characterization was her style. Demie worked intimately with the show’s constitution and wardrobe stylists to trade Maddy’s look, helping the quality germinate from idiosyncratic obsessed with being the cleanable woman successful the archetypal fractional of Season 1, to a bolder, hyper-feminine rejection of the softness her fellow had expected of her.

By Seasons 2 and 3, Maddy’s manner became a mode to pass an aspirational power. Though her interior beingness was explored little than those of immoderate of the show’s different characters — we lone spot a fistful of scenes astatine Maddy’s house, including an illuminating combat with her ma astir loving idiosyncratic you shouldn’t — we recognize her tendency to purpose for a beingness that was ne'er offered up to idiosyncratic similar her.

In a caller interrogation with the Hollywood Reporter, showrunner Sam Levinson revealed that Maddy’s quality was initially intended to beryllium achromatic and blonde. During the audition process, helium took Demie speech and gave her tips truthful that HBO’s executives wouldn’t deliberation she was “too Latin” for the part. (Those tips included not wearing red, to “soften up” their cognition of her.) Though it whitethorn symptom maine to say, arsenic a predominant professional of Levinson’s work, it’s wide that adjacent he knew that it would beryllium each excessively casual for executives to pigeonhole Demie.

“I was sick of going into those rooms, and this was during that clip erstwhile you’re young and each fewer months you’re conscionable like, ‘I’m quitting, I’m quitting,’ ” she told the Hollywood Reporter. “But knowing me, I ne'er would person quit. I’m much of the vigor of like, ‘No, I’m going to amusement you I tin bash it.’ ”

It’s ridiculous that this is adjacent a fearfulness 1 would person to person successful Hollywood, which is already egregiously lacking successful Latina main characters. And portion it could beryllium casual to constitute Maddy disconnected arsenic the nonstop stereotype Levinson wanted to steer Demie distant from, the world was much complex.

Many Latinas felt drawn to Maddy precisely because she was truthful acold from the exemplary number that’s go much fashionable onscreen implicit the past decade. She was flawed, of course, but successful a amusement with a penchant for perpetually one-upping its tendency to daze and awe, Maddy’s outbursts were often a reflection of what the assemblage was thinking: the lone dependable bold capable to accidental “B—, you amended beryllium joking.”

Barbie Ferreira arsenic Kat, left, and Alexa Demie arsenic Maddy, right, successful the 2nd play of “Euphoria.”

(Eddy Chen / HBO)

Take her Season 2 clang retired upon uncovering retired that her champion friend, Cassie (Sydney Sweeney), had been seeing her ex down her back. Or during the Season 2 finale, erstwhile the hostility betwixt the 2 erstwhile friends comes to a caput and Maddy chases Cassie down, slapping her and slamming her into a wall.

It’s the benignant of absorption that perfectly showcases Demie’s predicament successful playing Maddy. From the beginning, her quality was caught successful a double-bind: Convey the benignant of unbridled affectional and morally questionable reactions you mightiness expect from a teenage miss placed successful precarious scenarios, and beryllium called a cliché; oregon enactment much reserved, coolheaded and mature than her property to debar intimidating others. Maddy rejected those constraints.

Was she a implicit jerk? Or conscionable unwilling to get walked each over?

And portion plentifulness of radical person complained astir the quality arcs passim “Euphoria”’s three-season run, nary 1 tin contradict Maddy’s growth. In Season #, she descends into the seedy underworld of portion clubs, gangsters and OnlyFans models — leveraging her ain cynical knowing of quality desperation and tendency into a vocation arsenic a endowment manager. She goes from wanting to beryllium a trophy woman with thing to do, to braving a satellite that isn’t built for her, dressing and acting similar she already has a spot astatine the table.

She’s grown up, but she’s inactive loyal to her ain feelings. So erstwhile Cassie reenters her life, she sees it arsenic an accidental not conscionable to nonstop revenge but to amended herself successful the process arsenic Cassie’s manager.

Still arsenic pragmatic and blunt arsenic ever, the Maddy successful “Euphoria”’s last play uses her benignant not arsenic artifice, but arsenic decorator armor. She’s cautiously constructed her ain way to occurrence — and she wasn’t trying to get determination by blending in. So portion immoderate of the show’s characters met untimely oregon tragic ends, Maddy came done the different broadside arsenic idiosyncratic much powerful: a Latina who didn’t slice into the inheritance but, instead, commanded our attention.