Sydney Sweeney Was Nine Years Old, Her Class Took a Field Trip to the Foothills of the Selkirk Mountains in W Eastern Washington
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Hollywood Rising | CULTURE hen Sydney Sweeney was nine years old, her class took a field trip to the foothills of the Selkirk Mountains in W eastern Washington. There, she and her fellow fourth graders measured the pH levels of the Little Spokane River. “We learned hands-on in the environment,” says the actress, who went on to graduate as high school valedictorian. “It made me love learning.” Over the past few years, Sweeney, now 22, has con- tinued taking litmus tests, but of an altogether different ilk. In a slew of prestige projects, she’s plumbed the cul- tural waters, providing timely visualizations of author- itarian rule (Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale) and teenage drug use (HBO’s Euphoria). In the latter, she plays fan favorite Cassie Howard, whose pinup-girl pout often betrays the character’s quiet kindness. In the season one finale, Cassie is seen lying on a sterile operating table, readying herself for an abortion. (HBO has confirmed a second season will air this year, but Sweeney’s mum on the details.) “I always find a little bit of myself in every character, but Cassie is probably the closest to me,” she says. “Being a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl with a body, I can be typecast. But I love math. I’m going to college for business. People are always thrown off.” Last fall, Halsey tapped the actress to star in her downright euphoric music video for “Graveyard.” One YouTube commenter wrote, “It’s good to see happiness on Cassie Howard.” In fact, Sweeney has been chasing happiness for years. At age 12, she caught wind of a movie filming in Spokane and presented a five-year career plan to her parents, an attorney and a pharmaceutical representa- tive. She needed to audition, argued Sweeney, the elder of two children. (Her brother, Trent, is two years young- er.) The PowerPoint worked: She got the gig, and about a year later, the family of four began a gradual move to Los Angeles, where she’s lived ever since. “I was a nerd,” Sweeney says of her high school years. “I missed a lot of school because I was working. I was just this outsider [who] would float in and float out, turn in my homework, and get good grades. But I never really found my place.” Then came 2018, when she found her niche in a big way—onscreen. That year alone, she filmed The Hand- maid’s Tale, HBO’s Sharp Objects, Euphoria, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, and Big Time Adolescence, which is scheduled to hit theaters this month. The indie flick is Sweeney’s first foray into come- SYDNEY SWEENEY dy, opposite Saturday Night Live’s Pete Davidson and The Euphoria breakout dives Griffin Gluck (American Vandal). She plays Holly, the pink-haired girlfriend of Davidson’s burnout character. into her first comedy, Big Time “She wants to grow up really fast, but you look into her bedroom, which is like a little girl’s room,” she says. “You Adolescence, opposite Saturday realize she’s not as mature as she’d been putting on.” Of Night Live’s Pete Davidson. Davidson, whom she calls “a mastermind comedian,” she adds, “He and Griffin are just funny people all the time. I was like, ‘Can you please share some of your HEIDI TAPPIS By Brianna Kovan genius with me?’ ” 195 .