Euphoria star Hunter Schafer says she doesn’t want to play transgender characters anymore: ‘I don’t want to be reduced to that’

Hunter Schafer’s biggest role to date is as transgender high school student Jules in HBO’s drama series Euphoria.

But the 25-year-old star is no longer interested in playing explicit trans roles – and she’s even made a point of not mentioning her gender identity all together in recent interviews.

The actress covered up GQ for the Creativity issue, and she spoke about her hopes for a future where trans performers’ identities are no longer the focus of their work.

The admission about her new approach came alongside revelations about Schafer’s romantic life, when she confirmed she had dated Spanish singer Rosalía five years earlier.

Although Schafer acknowledged how much her role in Euphoria had done to raise awareness of transgender people and improve cisgender viewers’ attitudes toward them, she did not want to be defined by the future role.

The Euphoria star said she no longer wanted her gender identity to be the focus, and that she now exclusively takes on cisgender roles, despite being transgender.

Lately, she has been looking forward to the moment when interviews no longer have to focus on the fact that she is transgender.

Schafer clarified that her efforts to stop focusing on her identity had been a calculated decision.

‘It didn’t just happen naturally. “If I let it happen, it would still be ‘Transsexual Actress’ for every article ever,” she said.

In fact, she now even tries to avoid the word “trans” during interviews if possible.

“As soon as I say it, it breaks loose,” she explained. “It took a while to learn that and it also took a while to learn that that’s not what I want to be (reduced to) and I ultimately find it demeaning to me and what I want to do.

“Especially after high school, I got tired of talking about it,” she continued. “I’ve worked so hard to get where I am now, past these really hard points in my transition, and now I just want to be a girl and finally move on.”

She added that it’s a “privilege” to even have the option of not focusing on being trans or taking on roles as cisgender characters, but her strategy has been “very intentional.”

‘I’ve been offered countless trans roles, but I just don’t want to do it. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

Schafer made the decision in hopes of normalizing her gender identity. “It didn’t just happen by any means. If I let it happen, it would still be ‘Transsexual Actress’ for every article ever,” she explained; seen on February 16 in Berlin

She stars as transgender high school student Jules in HBO’s hit drama Euphoria; pictured with costar Zendaya

Schafer acknowledged the importance of her Euphoria role and how it has raised the public profile of transgender people and brought light to their fight for equality; still from Euphoria

Despite her goals to reduce the importance of being transgender to her career, Schafer still feels a sense of “responsibility” surrounding the issue.

“I’m sure I’m one of the most famous transgender people in the media right now, and I feel a sense of responsibility, and maybe a little guilt, for not being more of a spokesperson,” she said. . “But at the end of the day, I really believe that if I don’t put this at the center of what I do, I can move forward. And I think moving forward and doing great things for the sake of ‘the movement’ will be much more useful than talking about it all the time.”

Schafer confessed that years of foregrounding her gender identity in hopes of making a difference have also made her more cynical.

“I’ve lost a little bit of interest in achieving some kind of utopia,” she admitted. ‘I’m totally cool with people hating me for being trans or calling me a man. I don’t feel like convincing them anymore.’

Although Schafer is expected to return for a long-delayed third season of Euphoria, she recently starred in the hit Hunger Games prequel The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes, and is directing the upcoming horror film Cuckoo.

Despite her new position, Schafer made it clear that she was very focused on her gender identity in high school.

The magazine that in 2017 she became the youngest plaintiff in a lawsuit filed against North Carolina House Bill 2 (HB2), which made it illegal for transgender people to use bathrooms that corresponded to their stated gender, and instead forced them to use bathrooms that corresponded to the gender they were assigned at birth.

The law was passed in 2016 and later repealed in 2017 after significant backlash from business and sports teams who vowed to boycott North Carolina while HB2 was in effect.

However, subsequent anti-transgender laws have since been passed after Republican lawmakers secured a veto-proof majority to defeat Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, who took office in 2017 and was re-elected in 2020.

She explained that she didn’t want every interview to focus on her identity. ‘It took a while to learn that and it also took a while to learn that that’s not what I want to be (reduced to) and I ultimately find it demeaning to me and what I want to do’; seen on March 10 in Beverly Hills

Despite her new position, Schafer created artwork in high school criticizing her home state of North Carolina’s anti-trans bathroom law HB2, and was the youngest plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the since-repealed law; seen on February 22 in Milan

The national profile the lawsuit gave Schafer led to high-profile modeling gigs in New York, and ultimately helped her secure her breakthrough Euphoria role; depicted

Schafer talked about how artwork she created toward the end of high school referenced political debate and her transgender identity.

One item she made was described as a set of red underwear with large hands blocking the crotch, with ‘Peel away every perception’ on the hands and waistband of the underwear.

“I felt like I had to make my art a response to everything that was happening in North Carolina, even though that’s not necessarily what I wanted to make art about,” Schafer said. “I guess I thought, Oh, I’m trans. I should make art about this.’

Schafer’s increased fame from the nationally reported lawsuit helped her get modeling work in her senior year of high school, and she ultimately decided to forego admission to a prestigious fashion design program in London in favor of modeling in New York, although she now did. a house in Los Angeles to accommodate her growing acting career.