ALEXA DEMIE
On Demie:
Dress, Salvatore
Ferragamo.There’s a carnival scene in HBO’s Euphoria—Sam Levinson’s pulpy, drug-soaked
teenage drama—where actress Alexa Demie is spinning in a fun-house hall of mirrors,
high on Molly. “I’m looking at a thousand versions of myself,” says Maddy, Demie’s
darkly commanding queen-bee character. Her confidante, Cassie (Sydney Sweeney),
turns to her and says, “We should just pick the hottest, most confident, bad bitch
version of ourselves and be that for the rest of the school year.” Pick a bad bitch
she did, an untouchable demigod of small-town suburbia who’s since launched fan
Tumblrs, outfit analyses, and a thousand memes. As for Demie’s own teenagedom,
“I was always hustling,” says the Los Angeles native, 24, who spent high school in
an entrepreneurial frenzy, designing sunglasses and assisting on the set of Nicki
Minaj music videos. (Minaj’s “Massive Attack” green-camo bodysuit? Demie’s styling
handiwork.) “Ever since I could get a work permit, I had a job. I wanted money, and I
wanted to get out of my house as soon as possible,” she says. The actress dives back
into high school this month for Waves, director Trey Edward Shults’s atmospheric
drama, which follows two teenage couples, played by Demie and Kelvin Harrison
Jr. (Mudbound), and real-life sweethearts Lucas Hedges and Taylor Russell.