Zendaya teases ‘Euphoria’ season 3 time jump

Zendaya can’t wait to graduate high school.

We don’t mean in real life, of course. The 28-year-old Challengers star is just as excited as fans are about HBO drama series Euphoria jumping ahead in time to life after high school for season 3.

The time jump was the right call for the buzzy series, Zendaya said when she stopped by Entertainment Weekly‘s The Awardist podcast. “It’s important because there’s only so much high school drama you can deal with,” she said, before sarcastically quipping, “‘And then she cheats on her boyfriend again!'”

Zendaya wasn’t able to share many (or, well, any) details about what the show will look like for her character Rue when it finally returns, but she teased that it will be exciting. “I don’t actually know much about what is happening,” she said, though she is an executive producer on the series. “I don’t quite know exactly what the season is going to look like, but I do know that the time jump is happening.”

She continued, “It will be fascinating to see and understand these characters outside of the context of high school and how all the stuff that we saw when they were kids and they were in high school affects the adulthood they have and who they become in a much bigger world. I’ll be interested to see what happens too.”

Check out more from EW’s The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year’s best in TV, movies, and more.

In June, HBO boss Casey Bloys confirmed that the highly-anticipated third season will mark the return of the “same core cast” after a time jump takes the young characters out of high school. “[Creator and writer] Sam [Levinson] is working on it,” Bloys said at the time. “When you take it out of [high school], there’s a lot of back and forth about where to set it and how far in the future to set it and all that stuff. But I think he’s got a take that he’s excited about, and he’s busy writing.”

The first two seasons starred Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, Jacob Elordi, Hunter Schafer, Storm Reid, and Alexa Demie in a gritty tale about a teen addict and her peers, navigating issues of domestic violence, drug use, and even human trafficking alongside more typical teen drama fare of love triangles.

Past Euphoria stars who won’t return for season 3 include Barbie Ferreira, who announced a “teary-eyed goodbye” to her character Kat Hernandez following the season 2 finale, as well as the late Angus Cloud, who played the sensitive drug dealer Fezco and died of an accidental overdose in July 2023.

Listen to Zendaya’s full interview on The Awardist podcast below.

— Reporting by Gerrad Hall.