[This story contains spoilers from the second episode of Euphoria season three.]
Martha Kelly is as surprised watching Euphoria as the rest of us. The comedian and character actor, who received her first Emmy nomination for her menacingly deadpan turn as drug-dealer Laurie last season, came back this year for season three to wreak more havoc for Rue (Zendaya), even with the five-year time jump. This much Kelly knows: Laurie drew her former teenage hostage back into her web, “offering” to employ her to work off her debt, only for Rue to again escape — this time into the home of another drug lord, Laurie’s seeming rival Alamo Brown (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). As for everything else happening in the show, though? “I don’t know a lot of what happens this season because I only saw my own scenes,” Kelly says.
Much about Euphoria has been a discovery for Kelly, who made her acting debut to wide acclaim in Zach Galifianakis’s Baskets. She came into the show intimidated by the caliber of talent and intensity of focus given to every frame, and was worn out by the deeply disturbing material she was given in season two. But as the second episode of this third season clarifies, that load has lightened a little bit: The installment initiates the brewing feud between Laurie and Alamo, with her calling him a “fucking pig” over a tense phone call before he sends a literal, defecating pig over to her home in retaliation. Kelly at least knows what happens next in that world, but she’s not telling — only that, yeah, she wants Rue back, and she may not know the best way to go about that.
***
How is Euphoria mania going for you?
Anytime in my life when I’m leading up to something exciting, I just get paralyzed with dread — and then once it aired, it was really fun.
It’s got to feel like you’re in a Marvel movie or something, with all of the secrets you must be keeping. How are you managing?
I try not to say anything about specific things that happen, and I’m still not really talking a lot about even the first episode in my TikToks because I’ve seen the first three episodes and I don’t want to mix up what happens accidentally. The other thing that makes it easy is: In every episode I’ve seen so far, there’s stuff that happens that I was like, “That’s wild.”
What was the biggest surprise of the first two episodes for you?
Rue driving over the wall in Mexico. Rue and Faye having to swallow all those balloons.
I’m surprised you didn’t know about that part!
I really didn’t know that! I mean, I knew that they smuggled drugs, but I didn’t know how that was done, so I thought they had one large bag of drugs that they somehow got down, or maybe they got implanted or something. And I didn’t know any of the stuff about Maddie or Lexi. I didn’t know anything about Cassie and Nate. I didn’t know about Rue going to Alamo’s house and all that stuff that happened. I didn’t know about any of that.
When you got into it for season three, did you feel more comfortable in the role? Was there anything you wanted to play around with?
In season two, all my scenes were on a sound stage. That was Laurie’s dark, ominous home, and all of the material was really heavy and honestly upsetting. Whereas season three, she’s still a dangerous, terrible villain, but it’s in a different location — we shot on location — and there are other actors in it. Rue, thank God, is not a child anymore and there’s not a lot of the kind of skin crawling, “Laurie is a predator and we don’t know how far she’ll go with a kid” — which is what season two was like. So this was more fun for sure. And also you get to see Laurie as not the smartest business person.
This season overall is a bit more comic, so that fits into what you’re talking about, I think.
A lot of the characters, in the five-year time jump, have fallen from the high hopes that we had for them as an audience when they were in high school — which sadly often happens for people out of high school, who have a great time and then get out in the world and things aren’t as amazing in your early twenties as you hope. Laurie gave a suitcase full of drugs to a teenager and then kidnapped her and then passed out high allowing this girl to escape. So it’s already like, yeah, of course this character is going to have fallen a little. (Laughs)
Within the first three episodes, my biggest laugh remains when you just rattled off the amount that Rue owes you, from the season premiere.
When I said that number, I was like, this must be a joke. It can’t really be the amount she would owe. I made a video on TikTok yesterday saying, “I don’t even know if the math is right or if it’s just supposed to be an exaggeration.” Some people in the comments were like, “No, the math is correct. That is what it would be with that wild interest.” And I’m like, “Wow.”
The second episode fully establishes the tension between Laurie and Alamo — with Rue caught in the middle. She sort of loses control by calling him a “fucking pig.” Then he sends a literal pig her way. What’s going on there?
One of my shortcomings as an actor is that I don’t ask that many questions about the motivations of characters except for when we’re about to shoot a scene. “Is this line supposed to be angry?” But I didn’t actually ask Sam about that. My impression is that Laurie, like a lot of narcissists or sociopaths — whichever she is, maybe both — has convinced herself that she cares about Rue, although nothing about the way that she forces Rue into being a drug mule is caring. She has convinced herself that she has some kind of attachment to her and also is feeling like maybe she’s getting a little bit more on top again by having Rue.
So she found her and she’s making her run drugs for them — and then Rue goes with Alamo. They have a contentious past that started out not as enemies, and then by the time this season starts, she’s selling drugs to him — because partly she’s not a great business person and also because like, “Well, I’ll sell drugs to anybody.” But she thinks he’s a bad person. There’s something weird about people like Laurie where if they meet someone who’s as bad as them or worse, especially if that person hurts them personally, their sense of injustice and outrage is completely clueless. Normal people would go, “You’re kind of awful too.” But people like her are like, “How could anyone do this to me?”
You’re a comic actor and took on this very intense, dramatic role back in season two. What was it like joining the world?
I had a great time shooting it. I really love Sam Levinson and Zendaya and everybody I got to work with — it’s a great crew. But I was very nervous about it coming out because I thought Euphoria fans tended to be pretty young and very passionate and very sensitive, so I was prepared for them to hate the character — and possibly hate me by association. I was also very insecure about my acting because the cast on that show is way up here, and I’m a comedic character actor. I was like, “There’s a chance people are going to be like, This bitch ruined our favorite show.” I was really, really relieved and happy when that wasn’t the reaction.
I would imagine it’s a very different group of fans stopping you on the street than Baskets fans.
I love Baskets fans too. It was a really important part of my life and I love the people on that show. The Euphoria fans are more prone in public — because a lot of them are Gen Z — to shy-laugh a little bit and say, “Do you play Laurie on Euphoria?” I say yes, they say something nice and then they’ll often say, “Can I get a picture with you?” And I always say “Yes, as long as you don’t mind that I’m not good at taking pictures.” And then they take a selfie with me and then they go, “thank you, love you” or whatever. Not always “love you” but very sweet. Then they go about their business.
Given your anxieties about doing something in such a different register, did you watch the second season? If so, what was that like?
I always watch myself. I’m like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown — where I am Lucy and Charlie Brown. While I watch it I go, “Maybe this is the thing where I’ll be like, Hey, maybe I am a good actor.” And then I watch it and I go, ugh — about the way I look on screen and my acting ability. But the longer that I’ve been lucky enough to do this, the more I’ve tried to go into it being like everybody’s job has stuff that’s hard. And if the hardest thing for this great job is seeing myself on screen, who cares?
Did you think about how to make her scary, within your particular skillset?
I think that honestly, I just think that Sam’s writing and Zendaya’s acting are really what make her scary. He decided to create a mild-mannered sociopath; in real life, those are the scariest people, the disarming, vulnerable, seemingly nice ones who have no conscience. I kind of talk and have the same mannerisms in every role, so he just wrote it to where that’s how it would be me just acting the way I do and everything I’m in, honestly.
What has it been like to shape the character opposite Zendaya? What does she bring to those scenes for you?
I was really intimidated in season two partly because she’s really gifted. She’d be just making small talk with someone touching up her makeup, or with Sam or someone else in the crew, and then it’s like, “Okay, camera rolling, action” — and she could go right into really deep emotions. It is a high level of natural talent and a high level of skill and discipline. It’s a thrill to work with. It made me excited to get to work with her also just because she doesn’t act like one of the most famous people in the world on set. She acts like everybody else, so she doesn’t make it intimidating — her talent is intimidating.
As you mentioned earlier, there’s a lot going on in Laurie’s house this season — we see her associates, we see her bird. What was working in the space like?
There was also a rat that lives in that house that we all got to see. He had a penchant for coming out once the camera was rolling, getting in the shot and sometimes scaring people. This house was a location in the movie Nope, and it also was in an episode of Baskets. The second or third day shooting there, Jeff Barnett, our stunt coordinator was also stunt coordinator on Baskets, was there; I was like, “This looks so much like that house,” and that was almost 10 years ago. I asked Jeff and he said “This is the house.” So that was fun. It’s way more fun to be part of a group all in it together than to just be a creepy, despicable character being terrible to a kid in a dark sound stage.
***
Euphoria releases new episodes Sundays at 6 p.m. PT on HBO Max.
