Entertainment Hollywood
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ByBrent Furdyk/
Hunter Schafer's stardom has become well-established, yet it's come about as the result of an extraordinary series of coincidences. For the transgender actor, activist, and model, a career in Hollywood had never been something she'd either desired or chased. Her original goal — one she's never quite abandoned — was to study fashion design, to channel the creativity she's displayed since childhood into her passion for clothing.
Those plans, as her fans already know, were pushed aside when she fell into the world of modeling, and she quickly excelled at it. Appearing in numerous runway shows and fashion campaigns, she then segued into an even more unexpected career as an actor when she was cast as Jules in HBO's "Euphoria." Despite having no prior acting experience, Schafer proved to be a natural, becoming a favorite with the series' fans and establishing herself as a legitimate talent. Having recently made her movie debut in a big-budget franchise film, Schafer has firmly landed on Hollywood's radar, and film and TV viewers are guaranteed to see a lot more of her in the months and years to come.
How she arrived here is a truly fascinating story, from her journey of self-discovery to taking a stand against controversial legislation that raised her profile to a national level when she was just a teenager.
She experienced gender dysphoria as a teenager
Hunter Schafer grew up surrounded by religion — not surprising, given that her father, Mac Schafer, is a Presbyterian clergyman. Despite being assigned male at birth, her love of all things girly presented itself very early on. "I've always had this persistent need for femininity and expressing that — like ever since I was a teeny, tiny toddler," Schafer told WUNC. That was something that didn't abate as she grew older; interviewed by MyFox8, Schafer recalled dressing up in a frilly pink princess dress at preschool. When she came out to her parents as gay in middle school, neither her mother nor father was particularly surprised. They accepted the news, offering their full support.
It wasn't until the onset of puberty, when peach fuzz began growing on her upper lip, that she became increasingly concerned about her gender identity. "The anxiety level in Hunter was so apparent that I know that we could not continue kind of turning an eye or not listening," Schafer's mother, Katy, explained. "I felt like we were reaching a crisis point ... Hunter was just really struggling inside, and the anxiety was coming out."
Her parents sought professional help, which led to a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. That diagnosis marked the beginning of a period of drastic change, for both Schafer and her parents."And so it was in seventh grade that I came to terms with the idea that maybe I wasn't a boy,"she told Raleigh Magazine.
Her transition didn't happen overnight
Once Hunter Schafer had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, she didn't begin transitioning immediately. "After kind of coming to a consensus that this was a real thing, I was put on hormone blockers which kind of pressed the pause button on puberty and gave me time to think about my identity," Schafer told MyFox8.
A big turning point came, for both Schafer and her family, when she asked her parents if she could wear a dress in public for the first time. They agreed, but because there were still some family members who didn't know the full story about her gender dysphoria, they asked her to wait until they were away on a family vacation, when they'd be visiting the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. to attend mass.
Her father hadn't realized that they'd be part of a group baptism, which wound up becoming a watershed moment for all of them. "For Hunter, I think she was just glad to be wearing her dress, but for my wife and me, it was a very powerful moment of Hunter standing, as a transgender girl, being blessed as a child of God," her father told Raleigh Magazine.
She's always counted on the support of her parents
Given her parents' conservative backgrounds, coming to terms with Hunter Schafer's transition proved to be an educational process that opened both their hearts and their minds. Yet the one thing that her parents never wavered on was the love they held for their child. "We were going to love our kid no matter what," Schafer's mother, Katy, told WUNC. "Everybody was on board."
That said, when Schafer finally came out to her parents as transgender in the ninth grade, what had until then been an abstract concept suddenly became very real. "There was more adjustment for us at that point," Schafer's father told Raleigh Magazine. "Part of that was our own ignorance in not understanding what somebody being transgender meant, but there is also the inner grief you feel as a parent saying goodbye to what you thought life was going to be like for your child."
It was when Schafer began using she/her pronouns that their consciousness really began to shift."And we would make a lot of mistakes," her father told WUNC of using the correct pronouns, "but eventually at least for me it became very natural to this point where I don't think twice about it."
Hunter Schafer shared her artwork in Rookie Magazine
Back in 2015, teenage Hunter Schafer began working withRookie Magazine, an online magazine aimed at —and written by —teens.She beganpublishingher illustrations and comics, and as she told theVanderbilt Political Review, the art she shared in Rookie was reflective of her desire at the time to become a comic book artist.
Her very first post featured a series of her original drawings, which she'd titled "Between Us." Looking back at them today, Schafer's essays and paintingsoffer insight into her state of mind during the early stages of her transition, including one that she said represented how she felt when placed in situations in which she was expected to be gender binary, such as school dances. "I longed to escape, and to express what I felt inside me — not what was expected of me,"shewrote.
Those early posts, she explained, represented "one of the more accessible ways to experiment with the otherwise very rigid role I was assigned as a trans person." In one powerful series of illustrations, which she'd dubbed "Dancing on My Own,"she explored the frustration she felt when forced to wear male clothing, along with the relief she felt when she could come home and, in private, wear a dress. "Even though a large part of my identity was found and expressed when I was alone in my room,"she wrote, "prancing around in forbidden garments was electrifying."
She was the youngest plaintiff to join a federal lawsuit targeting North Carolina's controversial 'bathroom bill'
Hunter Schafer was just 17 years old, a junior in high school, when she became the youngest person to sign onto a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union targeting North Carolina's House Bill 2. Making national headlines in the media as "the bathroom bill," the legislation would effectively force Schafer and other transgender youth in the state to use public restrooms reflecting their assigned sex at birth, not their transgender identities.
"Under the law, my school may be forced to put me into a position that they don't want to put me in and that I don't want to be put in — and that's wrong," she told MyFox8.
As the bill —and the growing opposition to it —gained national attention, so too did Schafer as its youngest opponent. Finding herself under the glare of the media spotlight, Schafer did not shy away, but rather embraced it. That was evident when she wrote a powerful and eloquent essay about the bill for Teen Vogue."Every time I use a public bathroom, I have to make a choice: Do I break the law, or do I disregard my comfort and face the risk of harassment and violence?" she wrote.
She became a teenage LGBTQ+ activist
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Schafer's essay for Teen Vogue not only brought the 17-year-old a lot of attention, it also thrust her into the role of trans activist, whether that's what she'd intended or not. Despite her youth, and the fact that she'd only been transitioning for a few years, it was nonetheless a role for which she was ready.
That could be clearly seen in what she'd written in that essay, sharing her utopian vision of the future. "We are on the forefront of a revolution in which identity and expression will take priority over the labels assigned to us at birth," she wrote. "In which self-identification will take priority over perception. In which gender will fall away entirely."
While she was regularly described by the media as an activist, Schafer herself didn't quite see it that way. In her view, she felt that simply by virtue of who she was, she could contribute to a better understanding of why the bill was wrong and how it would harm vulnerable people. "But I don't think that makes me an activist," she told Variety. Nor did she believe she was mature enough to be anyone's role model. However, she conceded, "It might not really be up to me anymore."
She interviewed Hillary Clinton for Teen Vogue
The visibility that Hunter Schafer had gained for her public opposition to North Carolina's "bathroom bill" brought her national attention. In 2017, she was named as one of Teen Vogue's 21 Under 21, a group of exceptional young women who'd begun causing seismic shifts in the culture at an incredibly young age.
The high profile that Schafer had achieved led Teen Vogueto invite her to be one of five young women to sit down with former First Lady, Secretary of State, and first-ever female Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, asking their questions in an interview. For her query, Schafer focused on House Bill 2, asking Clinton how American society can better protect gender-nonconforming youth. "I think what happened in North Carolina should give you some measure of hope because there was such an outcry," Clinton responded. "It fundamentally struck people as wrong to discriminate like that."
She experienced early success as a model
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Hunter Schafer was touring colleges in New York City when she agreed to meet with a modeling agent she'd gotten into contact with via Instagram. She was signed immediately, and joined the roster of Elite Model Management. She quickly found work, appearing in magazine layouts and walking runways in Milan and Paris, modeling clothing from such top design houses as Dior, Helmut Lang, and others. For Schafer, however, this new and unexpected career as a model wasn't the goal, but a means to an end; her intention was to save up enough money from modeling to cover the tuition for Central Saint Martins in London, where she planned to study fashion design.
After a few years of modeling, Schafer had made a name for herself. "I worked with some of my favorite designers on the planet," she told Marie Claire, "but I never really made a lot of money. I was living paycheck to paycheck."
During her career as a model, Schafer appeared in campaigns for Versus Versace, Marc Jacobs, and more. She also became the face of Mugler's Angel Elixir fragrance, and in 2021 was named global brand ambassador for Shiseido.
An Instagram casting call led to her acting debut in Euphoria
Hunter Schafer's modeling career was exploding when she came across an Instagram post seeking transgender girls to audition for an upcoming TV series — no prior acting experience required. Schafer was intrigued, and she decided to pursue it. "I gave it a shot just because I had been mildly interested in acting, but it wasn't something that I thought I would be pursuing seriously in any way, shape, or form," she explained in an interview with The New York Times. It took months, but she wound up being cast as Jules in "Euphoria.""Eventually, I did my final audition out in L.A., and I was filming a pilot a month later," she told Variety.
One of the first things that Hunter Schafer did after being cast in "Euphoria" was to sit down for a several-hour meeting with Sam Levinson, who created the series. While Levinson shared his vision for the show, he also wanted to hear about her experiences as a trans woman. "Because that's another thing I was worried about, entering this project not only just being a completely inexperienced actor but also, like, the script was written by a white, straight cis man," Schafer told Entertainment Weekly. Her concerns, however, evaporated as it became clear to her that Levinson was not just bringing her onto the show as an actor,but as a collaborator, giving her the opportunity to help him authentically shape her character's story.
She dated her Euphoria co-star
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While working on "Euphoria," Hunter Schafer embarked on a romantic relationship with co-star Dominic Fike, who portrayed Elliot. In early 2022, the couple made their relationship Instagram official, with E! News reporting that Fike posted a photo on Instagram Stories in which the two shared a kiss.
Fike opened up about his romance with Schafer in an interview with GQ. At the time, while Schafer was modeling in Milan, Fike revealed that he'd made several trips to a SoHo Prada store just so he could gaze at Schafer's visage displayed in the window because he missed her so much.As he revealed, they fell in love on the set, a process that moved quickly due to the intensity of the love scenes they filmed together for the show. "In those moments, your relationship is accelerated," Fike explained. "Because you're so vulnerable with someone, immediately. Which usually takes a long time. Some people fall in love, like, f***ing months after they meet, or years after. We developed an attraction — it sped it up so fast. We just really got to know each other so quickly."
Sadly, the relationship didn't last. In July of 2023, Fike confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that they'd broken up. Contemplating a return to the "Euphoria" set and filming scenes with Schafer, now his ex, he ruefully quipped, "Oh yeah, that should be fun."
Hunter Schafer co-wrote an episode of Euphoria
While Hunter Schafer's abilities as an actor continued to evolve as "Euphoria" progressed, she also received the opportunity to participate behind the camera by co-writing an episode. That episode was a very special one, one of two standalone "Euphoria"specials that aired in 2021. Titled "F*** Anyone Who's Not a Sea Blob,"the episode focused entirely on Jules, with Schafer's role as co-writer emblematic of the collaborative nature of her relationship with series creator Sam Levinson.
"I'm really happy with how it turned out, and obviously I feel so safe with Sam to just throw out any ideas," she told Entertainment Weekly. "He gets it down to a tee as far as who I am, and my values as a trans person, and what I'm looking for when I consume trans media."
The episode also drew viewers deeper inside the character of Jules, a character she'd worked hard to fully develop. As Schafer told Variety, she'd worked very hard to establish her own identity as a trans woman, and initially felt a bit apprehensive about establishing a whole other identity in Jules. "The idea of having to put that aside and create this new person is scary," she explained. "But it's also really exciting to me, continuing to morph and to evolve."
She made her directorial debut with a music video
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Hunter Schafer has never been averse to tackling something new, and that led her to take on a whole new off-camera role as a director. While she initially kept details under wraps, the project was later revealed to be a music video for the single "hornylovesickmess" fromGirl In Red.
For Schafer, this was the ideal way in which to venture into directing. "A music video is the perfect format to kind of experiment, especially as a new director," she told Seventeen. "It seemed like a really good place to have the wiggle room to make some mistakes if I needed to, before approaching something much more ambitious, like a short film or a feature, which, hopefully, I will do someday."
Schafer followed that up by directing another music video, this one for Anohni's single "Why Am I Alive Now." Revealing she'd been a fan of Anohni since high school, Schafer opened up about the message that she was trying to put forward in the video. "I wanted to focus on the idea of finding sisterhood in a world that does nothing to help," she said in a statement to Rolling Stone. "I hope the direction, choreography, and tone conveys a small piece of that journey."
She made a big-screen splash in a prequel to The Hunger Games
Being cast as Jules in "Euphoria" opened the door to an acting career that has become as successful as it was unexpected. In fact, Schafer's second acting role took her from TV to the movies when she landed the role of Tigris, cousin of future Panem president Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) in the 2023 "Hunger Games" prequel, "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes."
Reviews for her movie debut were stellar. "Hunter Schafer is excellent as Coriolanus' housebound cousin Tigris," gushed IndieWire, while Mashabledeclared, "Truly, she lights up every scene she's in."
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Schafer was quick to point out that she never would have been able to play Tigris without the acting experience she gained from "Euphoria." "'Euphoria' was my acting school," she said. "I don't think I could have confidently taken on a role like this without using my experience in 'Euphoria.'" Asked by EW if she'd be open to reprising the role in another movie, Schafer said she was totally ready to return to Panem.
Hunter Schafer has a lot of Hollywood projects in the works
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There's no denying that Hunter Schafer's rise to stardom has been meteoric. And as much as she's been in the spotlight within the past few years, that's only the tip of the iceberg. In fact, 2024 will see her featured in a multitude of new projects, not least of which is returning as Jules in a third season of "Euphoria."
In addition, she's completed filming on "Cuckoo," a gritty horror film with a top-secret plot that was shot in Germany. She'll also be seen the "Kinds of Kindness,"directed by Yorgos Lanthimos ("The Favourite") and starring Emma Stone. As she told Elle, Lanthimos had seen her in "Euphoria" and created a character specifically for her. "It's a little cameo, like two scenes," she said. "It's cool though, and it's great to be in there."
She's also appearing in "Mother Mary,"described as an "epic pop melodrama" about the relationship between a fictional music star (Anne Hathway) and a legendary fashion designer (Michaela Coel), with Schafer playing the designer's assistant. Then, her voice will be heard in "OD," a horror-themed Xbox game from "Metal Gear Solid" creatorHideo Kojimaand director Jordan Peele. And after that? Given what she's already accomplished, it's fair to say that the sky's the limit.
