“It’s been a strange few weeks,” Hunter Schafer tells me on a Zoom call from Los Angeles. “Because I think I wasn’t sure if Euphoria was going to be really over or not.” When the actor and model saw that the last episode was officially called the “series finale,” she realized that the HBO show—in which she made her acting debut in 2019, playing Jules opposite Zendaya’s Rue—had truly come to an end.
“I was like, ‘Okay, it’s over now.’ So I’ve sort of been processing that,” Schafer says. “And thinking a lot about what’s next.”
When we speak, it’s a calm-before-the-storm moment for Schafer, ahead of a busy year. She is the face of Mugler’s Angel Blush Eau de Parfum, a new take on a beloved fragrance that will roll out nationwide this fall. Her IMDB is stacked: There’s the upcoming miniseries Blade Runner 2099, Tom Ford’s Cry to Heaven, the Japanese horror video game OD (which Hideo Kojima cowrote with Jordan Peele), the surreal film Fish (in which she stars alongside Tim Roth), the psychological horror film Palette, and more.
It’s an impressive roster for any actor, and especially for someone who never planned on acting in the first place. I tell Schafer I first encountered her work about a decade ago, when Tavi Gevinson’s beloved teen magazine Rookie published her illustrations. Back then, as a teenager, Schafer became known as a model and trans rights activist. After high school, she planned on studying fashion at Central Saint Martins. Then, Euphoria happened.
Photo: Carlijn Jacobs for Mugler
Now, the self-identified “fashion nerd” since middle school says that working with Mugler is a dream. “I was watching those hour-long runway shows that you can find on YouTube when I was in high school,” she says, adding that Mugler was always an “enormous sort of vault of inspiration” for her.
When we talk, she’s about to go to Italy for her next film. But lately, Schafer has been enjoying the summer, watching Love Island USA (“I’ve really gotten into Bravo this year,” she says), and taking a lighter, more natural approach to her beauty. She spent the last few summers in Europe and is inspired by the less-is-more French philosophy.
“I like to keep it sort of lighter and more natural cause it’s warm,” she says. “Elevating myself with lighter makeup or a lighter, sweeter fragrance.” Wearing perfume is like “stepping into a heightened or elevated version of yourself,” she says. “It’s the same thing that putting on a pair of heels does for me, or putting on a costume at work.”