Barbie Ferreira Quit Euphoria To Avoid Kat Becoming A 'Background Character'

While the majority of Euphoria’s main cast members are present and correct in the show’s current third season, there are a few faces that you might have spotted are missing.

Among them is Barbie Ferreira, who played Kat Hernandez in the first two seasons of the award-winning drama, before deciding to step away from the show for its latest iteration.

Her exit was preceded by unconfirmed reports of a clash between the actor and Euphoria creator Sam Levison, although she later insisted that her departure was a mutual decision.

Speaking to Deadline in an interview published earlier this week, Barbie claimed: “What I wanted to do is act and be able to do different roles, and if Euphoria was going to serve that for me, I would have happily done it forever, however long it would have been.

“But it wasn’t really letting me show my range. In fact, it was kind of diminishing as time went on.”

She continued: “To me as an actor, what’s most important is the fact that I get to portray different roles and characters and learn about acting and filmmaking and getting characters with depth, which I think Kat definitely had season one, but I don’t think that was really the tea after that.

“So, it just felt like a very personal decision where I, really deep down, don’t care if what I’m doing is the biggest show of all time, as long as I’m creatively fulfilled.”

Barbie went on to say that because of her “diminishing” role on Euphoria, she felt that she might have been overlooked by certain “studios or bigger directors”, whereas the indie projects she’s been part of in recent history have allowed her to show different sides to herself.

“Obviously, I’m not on a show that is so talked about and famous and all these things, and that was really fun to do at the time,” she conceded. “But it just, for me, wasn’t worth it for my ambitions as an actress.”

During an interview on the podcast Not Skinny But Not Fat, Barbie also stated that it was more important to her to be challenged as a performer than just be on “the biggest TV show on Earth”.

“I would rather do an indie movie where I’m acting, I’m flexing my muscles, I’m being creatively asked to do things rather than sitting around to be a background character,” she admitted. 

Last year, Barbie told the podcast The Viall Files that she and the team behind Euphoria reached the same conclusion that there was “nowhere to go” with her character in a future season.

“Instead of me kind of lingering around for nine months, I think it was best for both of us that we just ended it there,” she said.

“Of course it’s hard – I love Euphoria. I love Kat. Kat means the world to me. I spent so many years pouring everything into her, but it’s like, you don’t want to ruin a good thing.”

Barbie previously told The Armchair Expert: “I think there were places [Kat] could have gone [in future episdes of Euphoria]. I just don’t think it would have fit into the show.

“I don’t know if it was going to do her justice, and I think both parties knew that. I really wanted to be able to not be the fat best friend. I don’t want to play that, and I think they didn’t want that either.”

So far, the third – and, as it would appear, final – season of Euphoria has been met with a lukewarm response from critics.

In the four-year gap between seasons two and three, Sam Levison also helmed the TV series The Idol, which was similarly panned.