Hunter Schafer
Hunter Schafer joined the HB2 lawsuit as a North Carolina high school junior, modeled for Dior, played Jules in Euphoria and now stars in Blade Runner 2099.
Photo: Harald Krichel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Resized and converted to WebP.
UNCSA High School and the HB2 Lawsuit
Hunter Schafer grew up in North Carolina, and her parents are both pastors. In 2016 she was a 17-year-old junior at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts High School in Winston-Salem, where she had started that year because of her work as a visual artist and where she lived in the girls' dorms.
HB 2 was the state law, known as the bathroom bill, that governed who could use which public restroom. In March 2016, Lambda Legal, the ACLU and the ACLU of North Carolina challenged the law in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina on behalf of Joaquín Carcaño, Payton McGarry and Angela Gilmore. Schafer was not in that first complaint. On April 21, 2016, the ACLU announced that she and a married couple from Charlotte had joined the case as new plaintiffs.
The ACLU release gives a short account of her school years. By her sophomore year she was using the girls' restroom and feminine pronouns, and that same year she was elected to the Queens Court. Under HB 2, the release said, she could be forced to use the boys' restroom. Her statement in the release was plain: "I just want to be able to concentrate on school, grow as an artist, and have fun while doing that." She added: "It's humiliating and scary that there's now a law that would force me to go to a boys' bathroom when I clearly don't belong there."
Three years later she told Variety why she had put her name on the suit. "I was in a place of privilege in my transition and felt like I could handle making myself visible in order to help my state understand why what they were doing was detrimental to my community," she said. "But I don't think that makes me an activist."
Dior, Marc Jacobs and an Audition Posted on Instagram
She came to acting through modeling. Before television she modeled for Christian Dior, Helmut Lang and Marc Jacobs, and she had planned to go on to fashion design school. Her representatives suggested she try out for a new HBO drama about teenagers. She had already seen the casting call on Instagram. "Eventually, I did my final audition out in L.A., and I was filming a pilot a month later," she told Variety in June 2019.
The show was Euphoria, and the role was Jules, a trans girl whose friendship with Rue, played by Zendaya, borders on courtship. Forbes recorded 2019 as the year of her acting debut, in a lead role. What drew her, she said, was that Jules was secure in her gender identity and had other problems to deal with. "There need to be more roles where trans people aren't just dealing with being trans; they're being trans while dealing with other issues," she told Variety. She worked with the creator, Sam Levinson, to make the details of the character match her own experience.
The part brought scenes that were hard to explain at home. On the Call Her Daddy podcast in 2024 she described her parents' church as "on the chiller side of Christianity," but said she still felt bad about having to warn them about the sex and self-harm scenes in the first episode. "There's this whole pastor's daughter trope. And it gets kind of tough," she said, as The Hollywood Reporter reported. "I still do feel bad because that's something they still have to deal with."
Cuckoo at the Berlin Film Festival
Her first acting job after Euphoria was Cuckoo, a horror film written and directed by Tilman Singer. She played Gretchen, a 17-year-old who moves with her father, stepmother and young stepsister to a resort in Germany after the death of her mother. Dan Stevens, Jessica Henwick and Jan Bluthardt were also in the cast. Production wrapped in July 2022, and the film, released by Neon, had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2024. It was her first lead role in a feature.
The part sent her back to lessons: stage combat, sign language, the butterfly knife and the bass, which she plays and sings on in one song on the soundtrack. She told Variety that until then she credited all her acting experience to Euphoria and to Levinson, "who was sort of my acting teacher." Cuckoo was different: "OK, the training wheels are off, babe, and you gotta bring it."
In the same interview she was announced for Palette, the feature debut of director Zach Strauss, in which she was cast as a woman with synesthesia opposite Noomi Rapace. She said her old interest in visual art drew her to it; she had studied art in high school and once contributed artwork to the website Rookie.
She has also been careful about which parts she takes. Variety, quoting a 2024 GQ interview, reported her saying: "I've gotten offered tons of trans roles, and I just don't want to do it."
Four Years Between Euphoria Seasons
Euphoria's second season debuted in January 2022, and the third took years to arrive. In February 2024 Schafer told Variety she had not yet seen a script. Asked where she wanted Jules to be, she said: "I feel like a big sister to her now and I'm like, 'Give my girl some peace.'" In August 2024 The Hollywood Reporter reported that she was expected to return for the third season, with filming set to start in January 2025.
According to Deadline, more than four years passed between the second and third seasons. The third season's finale was released on May 31, 2026, and Levinson confirmed that night that it was also the series finale. The show ended with three eight-episode seasons over seven years, plus two specials made during the pandemic.
Cora in Blade Runner 2099
Her next role is on Prime Video. Blade Runner 2099 is an eight-episode limited series created by Silka Luisa, made with Amazon MGM Studios and Alcon Television Group and set 50 years after the events of Blade Runner 2049. Schafer plays Cora, a fugitive who takes on one last identity, that of a Blade Runner, and is forced to work with Olwen, a Replicant played by Michelle Yeoh who has only days to live. Jonathan van Tulleken directed the first two episodes, and Ridley Scott is among the executive producers.
Prime Video showed the trailer and key art at New York Comic-Con on October 10, 2026, and Schafer, Yeoh and Luisa appeared on its panel there. All eight episodes are set to premiere on November 25, 2026.
The same month, Variety reported that Schafer told Elle she had gender-affirming surgery in December 2025.
Sources
- Three More Plaintiffs Join Lawsuit Against North Carolina's Discriminatory Anti-LGBT Law | American Civil Liberties Union
- Trans Actress Hunter Schafer on HBO's Edgy Gen-Z Series 'Euphoria'
- Hunter Schafer
- Hunter Schafer on Telling Pastor Parents About 'Euphoria' Explicit Scenes
- Hunter Schafer on Horror Movie 'Cuckoo' and 'Euphoria' Update
- 'Euphoria' Is Over: HBO Series Officially Ending With Season 3
- 'Blade Runner 2099' Trailer: Hunter Schafer & Michelle Yeoh Team Up
- Hunter Schafer Reveals She Had Gender-Affirming Bottom Surgery
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