Meet Chloe Cherry, The Scene-Stealing Star Behind ‘Euphoria’s’ Faye Valentine
When ‘Euphoria’ returned for its long-awaited second season, fans expected the chaos, the chemistry, and the gut-punch storylines that made the HBO drama a cultural lightning rod. What nobody saw coming was Faye, a deadpan, doe-eyed newcomer with a knack for stealing every scene she stumbled into.
The blonde introduced alongside Zendaya’s Rue quickly became one of the show’s most quoted characters, and the actress behind her, Chloe Cherry, has only grown more central to the series with each new chapter. With Faye now playing a much bigger role in ‘Euphoria’ Season 3, here is everything to know about the character and the woman who made her unforgettable.
Who Is Faye Valentine In ‘Euphoria’
Faye is introduced in the very first episode of Season 2 as the girlfriend of small-time dealer Custer, and she quickly attaches herself to Fezco’s orbit after Custer is arrested. She is a recurring character in the second season and a main character in the third season of ‘Euphoria’, and Cherry plays Faye Valentine, a name borrowed from the beloved ‘Cowboy Bebop’ character.
In Season 2, Faye lives with Fez and Ashtray after her boyfriend is locked up, and she slowly evolves from a passive bystander into someone capable of genuine loyalty. When Custer is wired to push Fez into confessing to Mouse’s death, she secretly tips Fez off to stay quiet, lying out loud that Custer believed Laurie was responsible for Mouse’s killing. It is the moment that turns the character from a punchline into something more layered.
By Season 3, the show has aged everyone up significantly. The new season picks up years after the events of season two, with Faye trying out a quieter housewife life while Rue gets pulled into the drug cartel. The reunion between the two former roommates ends up anchoring much of the new season’s drug-running storyline.
Meet Chloe Cherry, The Actress Behind The Role
Chloe Cherry, the actress giving Faye her unmistakable voice, has one of the more unusual paths to HBO ever told. She was born on August 23, 1997 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and grew up in what she has described as a deeply repressive environment. In a 2022 conversation with Interview Magazine, she summed up her hometown as “conservative and boring”.
Long before she walked onto a Sam Levinson set, Cherry built a following in a very different industry. She launched her pornographic career in 2015 with Hussie Models and went on to appear in over 200 films, and by 2019 her work on Pornhub had pulled in more than 125 million views.
Her social media persona, however, is what put her on the wider pop culture map. She has roughly two million followers across Instagram and TikTok, and was scouted for ‘Euphoria’ on the strength of her humorous posts. In March 2022, she announced she was leaving the porn industry behind to focus fully on mainstream acting and modeling.
How Chloe Cherry Landed Her Role In ‘Euphoria’
The story of how Cherry ended up in the cast is almost too on-brand for a show about chaos. In an interview with Nylon, she explained that ‘Euphoria’ came about because Levinson found her on Instagram, simply thinking she was funny, before a casting company brought her in to audition.
The role itself almost looked very different on paper. In January of 2020, the HBO series held an open casting call for three new Season 2 characters, including one named Ami, described as a stripper struggling with addiction who escalates every bad situation she walks into. Originally, Faye was meant to be a stripper with a much smaller role, but after casting Cherry, Levinson reshaped the character and gave her significantly more screen time.
That last-minute reshaping has become part of ‘Euphoria’ lore among fans. Cherry told CinemaBlend that her character originally had only about three lines in the entire season before the script was rewritten. A lot of the character, she has said, came out of brainstorming sessions with Levinson and long conversations on set, where the two realized they shared a surprising amount in common.
Faye’s Bigger Role In ‘Euphoria’ Season 3
The Season 3 promotion comes with a much heavier workload, and Cherry has not been shy about how unpredictable Faye’s new arc is. She has been promoted to a series regular for Season 3, and the show is leaning hard into the character’s strange, deadpan magnetism.
Speaking to ScreenRant for their Debunking AI series, Cherry shared her own headcanon for Faye’s missing years, suggesting that with Fez locked up, Faye likely crashed at his grandma’s for a while before drifting away from the crime world, finding a new boyfriend, attempting a regular job, hating it, and eventually drifting back into drug-muling alongside Rue. The actress has also pushed back on fans who assume she and Faye are interchangeable. She joked that every comment under her posts insists “Wow, Chloe literally is Faye,” when, in her words, the truth is far from that.
The new season has not been without controversy for the character either. ‘Euphoria’ Season 3 episode 1 drew backlash over a “gratuitous” scene involving Cherry and a dog, and HBO, Levinson, and Cherry have yet to publicly address the criticism. Cherry has also been candid about the show’s broader sex work storylines, telling Refinery29 that she had heavy creative input into Faye’s Season 3 wardrobe, building on the trust she and Levinson developed while shaping the character together in Season 2.
After everything Faye has survived already, from Custer to a near-disastrous New Year’s Eve to a full-blown HBO time jump, viewers have plenty to chew on as her story keeps evolving. So which Faye moment from ‘Euphoria’ Season 3 has stuck with you the most so far, and where do you hope Chloe Cherry takes her before the season wraps.
