Nika King Addresses How Her Family’s History With Addiction Shaped Her Role as Rue’s Mother on Euphoria

Nika King grew up in Miami watching nearly every adult in her family struggle with addiction during the crack epidemic. Her uncle died of a heroin overdose just before she started filming the first season of Euphoria.

That history is what she brought to Leslie Bennett, Rue’s mother on the HBO series, a role she’s called the one she was born to play. King has said she studied teen addiction, talked through reactions with her own mother, and pulled from a lifetime of watching people she loved try to get clean.

She made the comments as Euphoria wrapped its third and final season, which ends with Rue’s death amid the fentanyl crisis. Creator Sam Levinson has described the finale as an allegory about addiction’s refusal to guarantee anyone a second chance.

King’s point lands in that same place. She wanted the happy ending growing up, and she wants it now. Sometimes it comes. Sometimes it doesn’t. The show, she says, is honest about which is which.