From Zendaya running drugs in Mexico to Sharon Stone joining as a Hollywood showrunner, here is every returning and new face heading into the final season on HBO.
Euphoria returns April 12 on HBO at 9 p.m. ET, with new episodes streaming simultaneously on Max every Sunday through May 31. The four-year gap between season 2 and season 3 is built into the story itself. Five years have passed within the show’s timeline, and nearly every character is living a life that would have been unrecognizable to their high school selves.
Several cast members are not returning to Euphoria. Barbie Ferreira, Storm Reid, Javon Walton and Austin Abrams will not appear in season 3. However, Chloe Cherry is back as Faye, Dominic Fike returns as Elliott, and Martha Kelly reprises her role as Laurie. The late Eric Dane will appear posthumously in the final season as Cal Jacobs, making this one of his last television performances.
The returning cast and where their characters stand
Zendaya anchors the season of Euphoria as Rue Bennett, now working off a debt to Laurie by running drugs across the Mexican border. The role has made Zendaya one of the most prominent actors of her generation, and 2026 alone features her in multiple major film releases alongside this final season.
Sydney Sweeney returns as Cassie Howard, who is now married to Nate and building an OnlyFans following. Jacob Elordi plays Nate Jacobs, now working in real estate and housing development while navigating run-ins with organized crime. Elordi received an Academy Award nomination in 2026 for a separate project, a measure of how far the cast has traveled since the show first aired.
Hunter Schafer is back as Jules, now an art student supporting herself as a sugar baby. Alexa Demie returns as Maddy, who appears to have moved into work adjacent to the entertainment industry. Maude Apatow plays Lexi, now an assistant to a Hollywood television showrunner, and Coleman Domingo returns as Ali, Rue’s sponsor and mentor, who tracks her down in Mexico.
New additions to the Euphoria season 3 cast
Season 3 brings in a substantial group of new cast members. Sharon Stone joins in the role of the television showrunner Lexi works under. Natasha Lyonne, Danielle Deadwyler and Anna Van Patten are also among the new additions, as are Marshawn Lynch, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Toby Wallace, Darrell Britt-Gibson and Priscilla Delgado.
The additions reflect a show that has deliberately outgrown its original setting. ‘Euphoria’ began as a high school drama and arrives at its final season as something closer to an adult ensemble story about people who got older without necessarily getting better at being alive.
What the season is built around
Creator Sam Levinson has structured Euphoria season 3 around the distance between who these characters thought they would become and who they actually are. Rue is the most extreme example, physically separated from everyone she grew up with and working inside a drug operation in another country. But the gap between expectation and reality runs through every storyline.
Cassie and Nate’s marriage presents a life that looks stable from the outside and clearly is not. Lexi’s Hollywood success brings its own pressures. Jules and Maddy are each navigating versions of adulthood that nobody prepared them for. The show has always been interested in the cost of surviving adolescence, and season 3 picks up the bill.
Eight episodes will air weekly through May 31. HBO has not confirmed whether this is the definitive end of the series or whether the door remains open for future installments, but the season is being positioned as a conclusion for the core story and the characters who have carried it.
