How Angus Cloud's remarkable Euphoria performance showed a star was born

Few shows in the last few years have defined the zeitgeist quite like Euphoria, the HBO high-school drama series that has shown Generation Z at its most nihilistic and troubled. As well as provoking innumerable conversations, it has been a breeding ground for young Hollywood talent – among them Zendaya, as misfit heroine Rue, Jacob Elordi as toxic jock Nate, and Sydney Sweeney as the vengeful Cassie. But no one gave Euphoria its heart and soul more than Angus Cloud, who played charming drug dealer Fezco and died aged 25 yesterday, just four years after he appeared on screen for the very first time, in the show's first series.

Despite the fact Cloud was a first-time actor with no formal training, his turn as Fezco instantly cemented him as a talent to watch, and seemed like it would be the start of a glittering career. Now his captivating performance simply leaves heartbreaking questions of what might have been.

Unlike his already well-established co-stars like Zendaya, a former Disney star, and Elordi, known from Netflix hit The Kissing Booth, Cloud was scouted by a casting agent while walking on the street in New York. He initially thought it was a set up, he told GQ: "I was confused and I didn't want to give her my phone number. I thought it was a scam."

What Cloud brought to Euphoria was vital to its success. Amid the show's often whiplash-inducing plot twists and anxiety-inducing pace, Cloud was a stabilising, almost grounding presence: stoic in his demeanour, despite Fezco often being involved in much of the most terrifying action in the series.

In another actor's hands, Fez might have been an overwrought, melodramatic stereotype – a macho, drug-dealing blowhard – but Cloud had a deadpan, understated quality that made the character feel authentic. "I had to change it a little bit," he explained to GQ about amending the Sam Levinson-written script. "To make it sound real, like how I would say it."

It obviously worked: as Cloud revealed to GQ, his co-star Elordi let slip to him that Fez was never meant to be a returning part. "I think Jacob told me, he was like, 'oh yeah, you didn't know? Your character gets [imitates brains getting blown out]'" he said, "I don't know, but apparently, because they cast me off the street, I guess the character of Fezco was [never meant to stick around]. I don't even know how. I never saw that script. No one ever told me."

A many-layered performance

Cloud played a complex character of contradictions – a caring drug dealer, a gentle gangster, a protector and an enabler – and had exactly the depth and the range needed to depict them. His scenes with Zendaya, as his addict friend Rue, demonstrated this; he was crackingly intense as he showed Fez grappling with the idea of selling Rue the very thing that could kill her, set against his almost paternal desire (he often referred to her as "family") to protect her from the underworld that he worked in.

To some extent, Fez was the voice of the show's complicated conscience, flipping from mild-mannered soul into menace when wreaking revenge on those he believed deserved it: Nate, who Fez viciously attacked after he blackmailed and tormented Rue's girlfriend, Jules and Nate's hateful dad Cal, who had videoed himself abusing teenagers. What happens when the "bad" guys might be better than the "good", upstanding members of society, the show asked? And can we forgive people's actions when we understand their own traumatic backstories? These were questions that Cloud embodied.

Meanwhile Fezco's gently understated and heartwarming flirtations with Lexi (Maude Apatow) were a real source of fan joy, and the scene where he sung Stand By Me with Lexi – "one the most beautiful moments I've ever watched,” in the words  of one Twitter user today – has now an acquired an extra poignance.

If Euphoria's first series in 2019 established Fez as a compelling presence, it was the second series in 2022 that really deepened him as a character – particularly the first episode of the run, which focused on Fez's origin story, highlighting how important to the show the character had become. It was a story that had parallels with Cloud's own life. In Euphoria, we see a young teen Fez being accidentally hit in the head with an iron crowbar by his drug-dealing grandma, and in real life Cloud also suffered brain damage from a head injury, aged 14.

Speaking to Variety in 2022, Cloud explained that one night in Oakland, he had fallen into a construction site's pit: "I woke up 12 hours later at the bottom. I was trapped. I eventually climbed out after – I don't know how long." He was taken to hospital where they "cut my head open, they put some screws and a plate over where I broke my skull and… sealed me back up," he explained, adding that it had had lasting effects on his speech, that were perhaps detectible in Fez's distinctive drawl. “[It's] probably a little bit slower," he said. "And I mix the front of one word with the back of the next. I'll scribble-scrabble two words together. Mix-match." At the same time, Cloud was not Fez, and in the same article he rightfully expressed frustration that people thought they were interchangeable. "It does bother me when people are like, 'It must be so easy! You get to go in and be yourself.'" he said. "I brought a lot to the character. You can believe what you want. It ain't got nothing to do with me."

What is clear is that despite being insecure about his talent – he also claimed to Variety: "I don’t know how to act. I'm in rooms with people that have been acting their whole life, and I'm like, 'Why am I here?' I got imposter-type shit" – he had a screen presence like few are blessed with. Outside Euphoria, he starred in the indie coming-of-age drama North Hollywood (2021) and recent thriller The Line with John Malkovich, while he has a number of films still awaiting release, including Freaky Tales, with Pedro Pascal. Whether they will offer due showcases for his talent remains to be seen, but Fezco, certainly, means he will never be forgotten.

-bbc