Hunter Schafer

Hunter Schafer is an American actor, model, and artist whose first television role was Jules Vaughn in HBO’s *Euphoria*. Born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1998, she grew up in North Carolina and studied visual arts at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Before she became widely known on screen, she was involved in a public fight over North Carolina’s House Bill 2. The 2016 law required people to use bathrooms in government buildings according to the sex listed on their birth certificates. Schafer, who is transgender, joined a lawsuit challenging it while she was still a teenager.

After high school, Schafer worked as a fashion model, appearing on runways for designers including Marc Jacobs and Dior. Her move into acting came with *Euphoria*, which premiered in 2019. Created by Sam Levinson, the series follows a group of high school students through friendships, relationships, addiction, and questions of identity. Schafer plays Jules, a new student whose connection with Rue Bennett, played by Zendaya, becomes central to the story. The role gave Schafer a character with a substantial life beyond her gender identity: Jules is adventurous and imaginative, but also uncertain about what she wants from Rue and from the people she meets online.

Schafer’s work on the series extends beyond acting. She and Levinson co-wrote “Fuck Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob,” a special episode focused on Jules that aired in January 2021. Much of the episode takes place during a therapy session, allowing Jules to speak about her relationship with Rue, her mother, and her own changing understanding of herself. Schafer returned for *Euphoria*’s second season in 2022.

Her film work includes *The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes*, released in 2023. She plays Tigris Snow, the cousin of the young Coriolanus Snow, in a story set decades before the original *Hunger Games* films. Tigris helps Coriolanus prepare for his public appearances even as his ambitions and the Games put strain on the people around him. In the 2024 horror film *Cuckoo*, directed by Tilman Singer, Schafer takes the lead role of Gretchen, a teenager who moves with her father to a resort in the German Alps and encounters increasingly disturbing events.

Together, those roles trace a career that did not begin with acting classes or a long list of screen credits. Schafer first became visible through art, modeling, and her opposition to a specific law in her home state; *Euphoria* then introduced her to a much larger audience.