Zendaya revealed that she is still recovering from injuries sustained during filming the fifth episode of season two of “Euphoria”

The episode, called “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird,” begins with an attempted Bennett family intervention. When Jules (Hunter Schafer) informs Leslie (Nika King) and Gia (Storm Reid) that Rue has relapsed, they dispose of her suitcase stash, turning the planned intervention into a brawl. Rue lashes out at Leslie, Gia, Jules, and Elliott, and begins tearing her house apart in pursuit of the cache that has already been disposed of. Rue is seen at her most vulnerable, kicking down the door to Gia’s room and fighting with her mother.

Zendaya told Entertainment Weekly about the “tough” opening sequence in which she smashes a door: “It was a very tough day. I mean, I beat myself up. I still have some scars on my legs and got quite a few bruises.”

“Rue really be whoopin my ass,” Zendaya captioned a video of her scars and bruises on Instagram Stories. To put things in perspective, Zendaya shot the whole episode almost five months ago.

“It’s always been a really intense episode…the general idea was always the same, which was this idea of, we cut right into an intervention and it’s Rue just ripping her life apart and setting her life on fire and kind of tearing everything to the ground to basically come to hopefully what feels like rock bottom for her,” Zendaya explained.

While she spends the whole episode rushing around town avoiding automobiles, cops, cronies, and criminals, it was her character’s intervention that troubled the actress, especially because she had to film it just after returning from the Venice Film Festival in 2021. “It was so intense and scary to tackle,” Zendaya adds, “and obviously something that would be incredibly emotionally taxing, but also physically taxing. Also, I care about Rue and I hate when she’s in pain. And I think this whole episode, there’s so much pain and it’s bubbling to the surface, and it’s also crossed with her withdrawing, which is extremely physically painful.”

Rue’s mother confronted her about her drug usage in the episode, revealing that she’d flushed $10,000 worth of narcotics that Rue was supposed to sell to a terrifying and monotonous drug lord.

“[Rue has] lost all control of who she is,” Zendaya continued. “And you can see there’s a little moment after that where all of it becomes regret. You can see her doing it and then immediately regretting it and wondering why she’s doing it. And then she does it again, like it’s just a really painful cycle to watch her go through. And I didn’t particularly enjoy having to watch her deal with that.”

Zendaya, on the other hand, found the intervention to be cathartic. “I think [that scene] just allowed me to just kind of release all of that,” she revealed. “The reason I’m an actor is I’m quite an empathetic person and what I often do, I take on a lot of other people’s pain and a lot of other people’s stress and fears and anxieties, as well as my own.”

Zendaya concluded with the following statement: “And I’m very grateful that I’m in a space where I feel comfortable and safe, and with actors and actresses that I’m obviously very close with. After every take, we’re hugging each other, we’re talking through it, we’re embracing, checking in, because obviously it’s like a war zone.”

King, her television mother, adds, “It’s definitely not pretty at all, but Sam realized that that needs to be seen. We need to see this Bennett family really go through it because that’s the only way the audience and people who are also going through this in real life understand. And they’re like, ‘Wow, this is authentic. This is real.’ ”

Season 2’s ratings for “Euphoria” have skyrocketed. According to Variety, the show’s Season 2 debut episode on HBO and HBO Max on January 9 drew 14 million total views. Season 1’s episodes had an average audience of 6.6 million viewers throughout the summer of 2019, thus this is nearly a 100 percent increase. “Euphoria” has already been renewed for a third season by HBO.