Bowen Yang wants everyone to know that Sydney Sweeney is extremely self-aware.
Earlier this year, Saturday Night Live received backlash after the Anyone But You star hosted the long-running sketch show in March. Many criticised SNL for objectifying the Euphoria star by pandering to her perceived sexiness — with many pointing to one sketch in which sheplayed a Hooters server.
But according to Bowen, that’s exactly how Sydney wanted her stint on SNL to go.
“She’s an example of a host who came in and understood how she was being consumed and perceived already,” Bowen told the Fly On The Wall podcast. “She came in and was like, ‘Please, everyone, make jokes about my boobs,’” the SNL cast member recalled. “She was practically begging everybody.”
Bowen then shared a cute anecdote about shooting the digital short Bowen’s Straight with Sydney.
In the digital short, Sydney plays herself and confesses to SNL cast members Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim that she has a crush on Bowen.
In response, the comics tell Sydney to shoot her shot with Bowen, because he’s actually “straight as they come” (Bowen is gay in real life).
Because the sketch eventually leads to a sex scene between the two, Bowen told the podcast that the show went as far as hiring an intimacy coordinator for the sequence.
He recalled letting Sydney know about the coordinator ahead of the shoot and told her that if she was “uncomfortable” at any point during the sex scene she could “tap out” or they could cut the scene altogether.
Syddney’s response to Bowen’s concern for her comfort was straight to the point — and pretty funny.
“And she goes, ‘Bowen, I’m on ‘Euphoria,’” he recalled.
Sydney built her reputation in her role as Cassie on Euphoria and has done several nude scenes on the HBO series — a part of her job that she was “timid” to do at first, she told HuffPost in 2019.
But, five years later, Sydney seems much more confident engaging in more risqué scenes — even telling GQ in March that she wanted to play up her bombshell rep while on SNL.
“There’s so many people out there who are like, ‘Oh, she’s famous because she showed her boobs,’” she told the magazine.
“You just learn the system,” she continued, discussing people’s assumptions about her. “You can try and fight it, but they just fight back. Even if you stand up for yourself, people are going to attack you for standing up for yourself.”