{"id":984362,"date":"2026-05-25T18:48:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T18:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/984362\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T18:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T18:48:18","slug":"euphoria-sam-levinson-explains-nates-death-scene-jacob-elordi-reacts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/984362\/","title":{"rendered":"Euphoria: Sam Levinson Explains Nate’s Death Scene, Jacob Elordi Reacts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains spoilers from Euphoria season three, episode seven.] <\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tSunday night\u2019s penultimate episode of Euphoria season three<\/a> revealed a brutal death for one of its main castmembers. <\/p>\n

\n\tAfter having his wedding night ruined, a finger and toe cut off and being buried alive, Jacob Elordi<\/a>\u2018s Nate Jacobs faced his fate when a venomous rattlesnake slithered its way into the hole he was buried in and bit him. All of this was the result of Nate\u2019s business arrangement with Naz (Jack Topalian), which left him in debt. Naz later went to Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) and said she had 72 hours to deliver the money Nate owed him. Alamo (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) then killed Naz to help Cassie and Maddie (Alexa Demie) free Nate, but when the coffin he was buried in gets dug up, his lifeless body is revealed. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn an exclusive interview with Esquire<\/a>, the creator of the hit HBO series<\/a>, Sam Levinson<\/a>, unpacked what went into killing off Nate, a main character of the series since the show\u2019s debut in 2019 who was known for being controlling and abusive. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s this kind of funny thing where I\u00a0know\u00a0what the audience wants in terms of justice or karma and with that in mind, I always think, \u2018Well, how can I give it to them?\u2019\u201d Levinson told the publication. \u201cHow can I give them what they want, but make it so horrific and anxiety-inducing that by the time it happens, the audience isn\u2019t so sure they wanted it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe article goes on to report that Levinson \u201cknew from the get-go that Nate was finished this season.\u201d Nate, who endured grief, trauma and violence throughout the first two seasons, showed glimpses of humanity in season three because Levinson \u201cmuddied the moral waters.\u201d The outlet notes that the shift was a setup for what unfolded in episode seven, \u201cRain or Shine.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, you wanted him to get his comeuppance\u2026? OK. That feeling of complicity with the audience is always an interesting note to play inside of this sort of larger structure,\u201d Levinson said. \u201cYou end up going, \u2018Oh God, I don\u2019t know. Should he have had it better?\u00a0Did\u00a0he deserve it?\u2019 Those kinds of questions are always exciting to pose to the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe continued, \u201cIt was what was exciting about the characters being out of high school<\/a>. They\u2019re in the real world and the consequences are real. There\u2019s no safety net. I like this Wild West, frontier aspect to it where you can make something of yourself, but you\u2019re going to have to live with the consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLevinson<\/a> revealed that his original idea was for Nate to die from suffocation or heat while buried alive. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI always loved the movie\u00a0The Candy Snatchers\u00a0where the girl gets buried alive with a pipe as an air hole. So I had imagined that Nate would get buried alive,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, he explained that he changed his mind about how to kill Nate one day while driving to work with his wife, Ashley Levinson. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was one of those gorgeous L.A. days where it was perfect weather. We\u2019re listening to Otis Redding. The windows are down and we\u2019re driving to Warner Brothers and I\u2019m looking out the window,\u201d Levinson said. \u201cI just had this image of a rattlesnake coming towards this pipe. He\u2019s banging and the snake can sense the movement in the ground. And I thought,\u00a0\u2018What if the snake goes into the pipe and then he\u2019s stuck inside the coffin with this rattlesnake?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added, \u201cIt\u2019s sort of a funny moment where you realize that not all dark scenes come from a dark place. I turned to Ash and I said, \u2018I think I got it.\u2019 And I explained how Nate dies in this sequence. She goes, \u2018That\u2019s\u00a0what you\u2019ve been thinking about?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing the episode\u2019s premiere, Elordi said in an HBO<\/a> post-show segment that it was a \u201ccool way to go\u201d and \u201cquite peaceful\u201d filming inside the coffin. He also shared what it was like working with a real snake for the scene.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey had a boa constrictor that they put a fake rattler on the end of, and Sam was like, \u2018We\u2019re just gonna drop a snake on you,’\u201d Elordi said. \u201cThe snakes were rattling, which is really alarming when you\u2019re locked in a box.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the Wuthering Heights star went on to call the snake \u201csuper cute.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe was real cuddly, so he just saddled up next to me and it was nice,\u201d he said. \u201cBut he was real sleepy. I had to kind of nudge him to get him to come up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, Elordi was pleased with how his character was sent off. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNate was someone who has made so many mistakes and made so many dark choices. It\u2019s cool to see it all come to what it\u2019s come to. This show is a massive part of, not just my career, but my life. It\u2019s been amazing, and I\u2019m so proud, being a part of this.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tEuphoria <\/a>season three<\/a> finale premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO. Check out all of The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s coverage here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains spoilers from Euphoria season three, episode seven.] Sunday night\u2019s penultimate episode of Euphoria season three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":984363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3937],"tags":[77,24807,2308,86748,236773,382,16,15],"class_list":["post-984362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-euphoria","tag-hbo","tag-jacob-elordi","tag-sam-levinson","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=984362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/984363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=984362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=984362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=984362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}