Don’t Call Me Fez: Angus Cloud Rejects Comparisons to His ‘Euphoria’ Character

Selome Hailu

“Euphoria,” the teen drama created by Sam Levinson, became a hit largely thanks to the power of social media. But that level of attention — the series is HBO’s second-most-watched of all time behind “Game of Thrones” — doesn’t come without its drawbacks.

Angus Cloud, who plays “Euphoria’s” warmhearted drug dealer Fezco, has found himself largely misunderstood by many of his fans, who often assume he’s just like his character in real life. In an interview for the cover of Variety’s Power of Young Hollywood issue, Cloud opened up about these comparisons.

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“It does bother me,” Cloud, 24, says, “when people are like, ‘It must be so easy! You get to go in and be yourself.’ I’m like, ‘Why don’t you go and do that?’ It’s not that simple. I brought a lot to the character. You can believe what you want. It ain’t got nothing to do with me.”

Much of the misconception that Cloud and Fez are one in the same comes from the unmistakable qualities of Cloud’s voice, which is uniquely gravelly and slow-paced — partially impacted by a traumatic brain injury he sustained as a teenager, which he discusses at length in his cover story. Cloud doesn’t alter his voice to play Fez, and additionally works with Levinson to adapt his dialogue into a vernacular that feels more natural to him, heavily influenced by his upbringing in Oakland, Calif.

There’s also the fact that Cloud is a first-time actor. He was scouted for the role while walking down the street in Brooklyn, without any dreams or plans related to acting. So when scenes from “Euphoria” and various media appearances in a similar cadence are all that fans see, it becomes easy to draw untrue conclusions.

“They gotta see some other work, I guess,” Cloud says when asked what he thinks might change his public perception. “I just did a frat movie [Ethan Berger’s ‘The Line’] where I don’t have that accent. I was trying to talk like a frat kid. They wanted me to sound like I was damn near from the south or something. That was a completely different thing.”

“I hope I did a good job,” he continues. “I ain’t tryna be like no one-trick pony. But if I did shit, then it is what it is. I don’t know how to act. I just do it. I’m in rooms with people that have been acting their whole life, and I’m like, ‘Why am I here?’ I got impostor-type shit.”

Casting director Jennifer Venditti is also dismayed by the way people see Cloud: “It bothers me. People just think, ‘Oh, he just shows up. He’s just this lazy stoner.’ Like, no. I do [casting work] for the Safdies. I do this for many people. I’ve been doing this for a while, in terms of working with non-actors, and a lot of people can’t do it. It’s not just showing up and being yourself on camera. I’m really proud of him. Angus doesn’t get enough credit.”

After being introduced by Eléonore Hendricks, the casting scout who spotted Cloud on the street, Venditti interviewed him on camera to get a sense of his screen presence.

“He was not what you would expect,” she says. “He has this rough, street quality about him, but he’s a very sensitive and curious and open person. Just really warm, and incredible on camera. Very charming, and told incredible, funny stories. There was one question about something crazy you did, and he told this story about him and his friends breaking into a zoo. The way he told it was very funny. That’s a quality I look for in interviews. Some ability to tell a story that’s engaging.”

(“Yeah, that happened a couple times,” Cloud told Variety. “You just go over the fence at the zoo. Go into the kangaroo cage. See some animals. And get kicked out.”)

Augustine Frizzell, who directed the pilot episode of “Euphoria,” was equally struck by the interview video.

“The first thing you notice, of course, are these crazy blue eyes. He’s so magnetic, just talking about life. I was like, ‘Oh my god, please let him be able to act.’ Because so many times, you see the videos, and these people have that indefinable thing … [until] you get them with a script. But he did a reading and was just so crazy good with, like, zero training. It was like finding diamonds.”

“He had this incredible ability for active listening. One of the scenes that he auditioned for was a big monologue that Rue [Zendaya] had,” Venditti says. “There was a lot of time where the camera was just on his face listening, and there was so much subtext there, just in his face. You could just watch him listen forever; it jumped off the screen. In my career so far, it’s one of the first times where I sent an audition tape and within seconds, everyone on the team separately sent immediate responses of, ‘Oh my God! Who is this? Wow!’”

“It doesn’t happen often,” she continues. “And it wasn’t a series regular role to begin with. But everyone fell in love with him, and the rest is history.”

While shooting the pilot, Frizzell found it easy to forget how new Cloud was to the entertainment industry.

“His reads were spot on. He needed very little [re-direction],” she recalls. “We were doing the scene where they’re on the couch by the pool. We’d done a take, and I was like, ‘Great! Let’s move on. And he came up to me like, ‘Hey … did I do okay?’ I was kind of shocked that he needed encouraging. It makes sense to me now, but his performance came with such confidence and ease, I couldn’t tell that he felt unsure. I was like, ‘Oh my god, Angus, you’re doing so good!’ It was like watching someone do the thing they were meant to do.”

Javon Walton, who plays Fez’s adopted younger brother Ashtray, also took notice of moments like these. When asked what he feels he’s learned from Cloud, the 15-year-old says, “I’m a perfectionist, so Angus has always just been big on not letting things get to him. He gives his best every scene and doesn’t hold on to bad takes … he just moves on.”

With two seasons of “Euphoria” under his belt, Cloud is still insecure about his skills — but it’s less overwhelming than it used to be.

“If it’s good, then hell yeah!” he says. “I didn’t spend my whole life trying to be an actor, so I’m not finna be devastated if I didn’t do a good job on some shit where I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. You know what I’m saying? It’s not like, ‘Oh no! I fucked my whole life up.’ Y’all hired me!”

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