Euphoria actor Angus Cloud passed away on Monday, following the death of his father the week prior. Cloud “intensely struggled with this loss,” according to a family statement, the two having been tied at the hip. Cloud's cause of death is yet to be made public. He was just 25 years old. Pulled off the street by a Euphoria casting scout in New York, the Oakland native was a complete Hollywood newbie when he was launched into stardom by Sam Levinson's showy Gen Z drama, soon becoming a fan favourite.
Most will remember him, then, as the gentle heart of Euphoria, portraying the loveable drug dealer Fezco. “Loveable drug dealer” reads as oxymoronic, but in Euphoria's crowded room of narcissistic chaos merchants, Fez stands out for his selfless heart — so much so that you're led to overlook his dope-slinging tendencies. It's a fun trick the show plays, making the most likeable character of the lot a dealer, owed in large part to Cloud's elevating presence: earnest, vulnerable, stripped of the L.A. pretence the rest of the Euphoria high schoolers serve in annoying abundance. Would you really rather grab a beer with Nate?
Many of Cloud's scenes see Fez sat around in his lounge, smoking a joint and pontificating about the world, as stoners are often wont to do. He's a philosopher who speaks in monosyllables. That, half the time, he's so zonked out he doesn't seem to know where he is, is one of his most endearing traits. Maybe he reminds you of a brother, or a brother's friend from college — that misunderstood, beardy rogue who gave you your first toke on a spliff out the back of the dingy school bike sheds, before spilling out the secrets of the universe. There's a welcoming softness to his voice, to his face, to his eyes; a sadness that lingers like that in a rescue dog.
In the second season, it's Fez's vulnerability that endears him to Lexi (Maude Apatow), and they go on to share the series' most surprising relationship, platonic but teetering on romance. Notably, Fez is one of Euphoria's few non-fuckboys.
In the sixth episode of the second season, they're sat together in Faz's ramshackle apartment, and they've just watched Rob Reiner's moving coming-of-age classic, Stand by Me. “I've got somethin' in my fuckin' eye”, Fez says, in that familiar, gentle drawl, wiping the mist from his eyes, a plume of joint smoke dancing in his face. Lexi laughs, adoringly. The two — sat far apart on his floral grandma sofa, but unmistakably close — look into each other's eyes and murmur the lyrics: “darlin' won't you / stand by me”. Fez clasps her hand in a way that says, “I've got you, and I won't let go”. Cloud barely moves his face, but as he taps his chest, you feel the subtle grief of a man who has been let go, abandoned, forgotten. Unlike the other boys of Euphoria, Fez doesn't want anything back for his care. In a show centrally interested in what one can get out of others, it's a moving display of selflessness.
Some fans saw Cloud as “playing himself”. It's a presumption that a lot of actors are burdened with — and a particularly strange one, given we seldom see how they act in private, so how would we know? Understandably, It's something that annoyed him. “It does bother me, when people are like, ‘It must be so easy! You get to go in and be yourself.’”, he told Variety. "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.” On the other hand, his unfazed red carpet interviews might've led one to question where Cloud ended and Fez began. But therein lay the wonderful alchemy of his performance. Maybe he was similar on screen to how he was in real life, which imbued in Fez a sense of truth. The work Cloud did on top of that — teasing out Fez's delicate soul — is what made him beloved, and Euphoria's greatest asset.
