If you’ve been tuning in to the hit HBO series Euphoria, then you definitely are familiar with the notorious McKay twins. The coming of age drama follows a group of high school students through their formative years. The show is so explicit that Zendaya issued a trigger warning to her fans on Twitter prior to the premiere episode. She wrote. “Just a reminder before tonight’s premiere, that Euphoria is for mature audiences. It’s a raw and honest portrait of addiction, anxiety, and the difficulties of navigating life today.”
The twins play the younger brothers of college football star Chris McKay (Algee Smith). Tyler and Tristan Timmons star on the show as fourteen-year-olds Troy and Roy McKay. The two brothers are constantly stirring up problems for the main characters. The biggest scandal they have caused so far happened in Episode 102: Stuntin’ Like My Daddy. This occurs once they got their friend Wes (Nolan Batement) to convince Kat Hernandez (Barbie Ferreira) to lose her virginity in the pilot episode. The McKay twins film a sex tape and leak it on social media, so it gets shared around their whole school.
Photographer is Eddy Chen/HBO
Kat threatens Troy that he better take down the video and tell everyone it isn’t her. Otherwise, she’ll report him and his brother to the police for distributing child pornography without her consent. Troy thinks he can’t be guilty of committing a crime since everyone involved is under eighteen. “Children can’t make child pornography, ” Troy tells Kat. “Troy…Google it, “ Kat says. But Troy gives in when Kat threatens to go to the police. She tells Troy the only way he and his brother can avoid getting in trouble, is if they delete the video and tell everyone it’s not Kat on the sex tape. Troy and Roy have to go around the school. They clean up their mess by telling everyone they were wrong that Kat was the girl featured in the infamous sex tape. Troy then has to take Kat on an expensive shopping spree to fully make amends.
The second messy situation caused by the McKay twins occurs in Episode 104: Shook One Pt. II. Rue (Zendaya) loses her sister Gia (Storm Reid) in this episode set at the town carnival. Rue later finds Gia hanging out and getting high with the twins. Rue begs her sister to put down the pot and come home with her. But the twins intervene and tell Rue to leave them alone, because she’s the only one who has a drug problem. Euphoria is created and written by Sam Levinson and executive produced by Drake. The cast of Euphoria also includes Alexa Demie (Mid90’s), Barbie Ferreira, Hunter Schafer, Jacob Elordi (The Kissing Booth), Algee Smith ( The Hate U Give), Maude Apatow, Sydney Sweeney (Sharp Objects), Angus Cloud, Nika King (Greenleaf) and Eric Dane (Grey’s Anatomy).
The biggest scandal from the show so far, which has spilled over into pop culture, involves Barbie Ferreira’s character Kat Hernandez. Kat is a One Direction fan fiction writer in Episode 103: Made You Look, who pens an animated tale about 1D members Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson being lovers. Fans of the group are so outraged that they have created online petitions against the show. But the controversy increased interest and the overall viewership. We reached out to a young Generation Z One Direction fan named Carli. “I actually haven’t watched Euphoria prior to this “Larry” scene. I actually follow Barbie Ferreira on Instagram and knew she’d been working on a show, but it finally caught my attention the other day when she posted a photo of her posing with a cardboard cutout of Harry and the caption “Tonight’s episode of Euphoria without context.” I think it caught everyone’s attention actually, and I think we were all excited until I logged onto Twitter and saw all the fans reactions to the scene once it aired.” Twenty-two-year-old Carli stated via email correspondence.
“I definitely watched the scene. I think to say the least; I definitely wasn’t as outwardly upset or outraged as some fans. I think it’s important to remember that in the episode, the scene was nothing more than about 10 seconds of a fan fiction imagination that supports the backstory of one of the main characters.” Carli explains. “The show wasn’t necessarily expressing support of a relationship between Harry and Louis, it feels like a lot of people blew it out of proportion. That being said, I do understand how it makes viewers uncomfortable though, especially ones who know how problematic the “shipping” of Harry and Louis was.
To see this scene so explicitly brought to life on screen for viewers to watch instead of living quietly in the online pages of a fanfic is definitely a bit of a shock to a lot of us fans. Not to mention Larry is a subject so many fans worked so hard to erase and push away after they knew the constant pushing for them to be romantically linked made Louis and Harry’s friendship grow awkwardly apart in real life. But like I said earlier, I think it’s important to remember the gist of this whole scene was just giving some backstory to a character, letting everyone know that she was one of the thousands of fanfic writers out there that can relate to her. Could Zendaya’s character just have narrated simply that Barbie’s character was a Larry fanfic writer? Maybe, but then they wouldn’t have so many people (precisely in their target audience age range) talking about it and watching it then, right?
BlackFilm caught up with Tyler and Tristan Timmons halfway through the eight-episode season after the airing of Episode 104: Shook One Pt.II. Tyler and Tristan Timmons were seen in Ryan Coolgler’s Black Panther as the kids on the basketball court in Oakland. They shared their thoughts on the recent controversies surrounding Euphoria and their roles providing comic relief on the dark teen drama.
BlackFIlm: How do you feel to be a part of such a popular series?
Tyler Timmons: We feel very excited to be a part of the series.
BlackFilm: How were you both cast on Euphoria?
Tristan Timmons: Originally it was the role of one character that we auditioned for, but then they made the one character into twins. Because at first we were just supposed to work as one character and switch on and off.
BlackFIlm: How would you describe your characters on the show? The way your characters are, they are impacting a lot of the storylines on the season with the four episodes that we’ve seen so far. Both of you are responsible for, at least one of you are involved in leaking the sextape that Kat had, that impacted her popularity at school. And then in the episode that just aired on Sunday. You’re influencing Gia to do drugs. Can you both talk more about that?
Tyler Timmons: I would describe our characters as arrogant and very ignorant kids with a bad sense of humor. They’re just fourteen-year-old teenagers, but very arrogant and ignorant. That’s the best way to describe them.
BlackFilm: Can you give anything, without giving any spoilers away? Can you give any hints to any other things that we can expect from your characters on the upcoming episodes for the first season?
Tyler Timmons: The one thing I can say is justice will be served and everybody will be happy. That’s the best way I can put it.
BlackFilm: What is it like for you to work with Zendaya on the series?
Tristan Timmons: That was actually a great experience, because we used to look up to her—when we were younger. To actually be in her presence and see her acting in person and acting with us. It was a mind-blowing experience.
BlackFIlm: What is it like for you to work with Drake on the series? He’s executive producing the show. Has he given either of you any advice on the series with this type of experience on a show?
Tyler Timmons: When we were shooting, we didn’t get to meet Drake. Because every time we were there, because we don’t live in L.A., we live in Atlanta. Our first time meeting him was on the red carpet. He came up and he was like. ‘I’m so proud of y’all. Y’all are incredible.’ That meant a lot to me. We’ve been fans since we were very young. So for him to be proud of us. That was crazy.
BlackFilm: Has he made any other visits to the set other than the one that you mentioned?
Tristan Timmons: Yes, he came to the set frequently. But it was just that he was there, when we weren’t there. That’s how it was; it seemed like every time that we left. He would pop up and do some work. But everytime we came back and it was close to time for us to come back, he would go do some business or other stuff.
BlackFilm: You’re both acting now. You also have a popular YouTube channel. Are you also interested in making a foray into the music industry at some point in time?
Tyler Timmons: Actually, yes we have a song that is currently on release. But a lot of people have heard snippets from our YouTube videos. They’ve been waiting on it for a while.
BlackFilm: How would you describe your music?
Tyler Timmons: Melodic, chill and just nice happy music—that makes you feel good.
BlackFilm: Are you going to seek advice from Drake about making music since he is very popular on the charts?
Tyler Timmons: I dunno. We’ll have to see how it goes.
BlackFilm: Did the director Sam Levinson give you both any special directions on the set? Since this is your first major role on a television series.
Tristan Timmons: Sam, he really just told us just do y’all thing. He saw that we were really good at improvising. And showing off our creativity and personality. Usually we got the script, we’ll read through it and then we’ll make it our own. Stick to the story. But add our own certain words lines and movements.
BlackFilm: How do you feel about the fact that the show is resonating with so many people? It’s making headlines every week. There is a part of it that is controversial. But then there is also starting a conversation about a lot of things that are happening within your generation.
Tristan Timmons: I feel like this show is going to really. The controversy is gonna come, because there aren’t any shows that have been like this. That have been this graphic. But I feel like the graphicness and all of the stuff people don’t like about it. I feel like that’s good to show because it exposes how the reality is for some high school students.
BlackFilm: On the last Episode 4, that’s aired so far, you’re both showing a controversy. By showing the impact that Rue’s experimentation and her drug addiction has on her sister Gia. When you’re both smoking with her. What did Sam tell you about how to portray that scene? How did you feel about the conversation that you had in the series with Rue’s character when she was trying to intervene to help her sister?
Tyler Timmons: When we were shooting that scene Sam just basically told me to be me. Just follow the script and be in character. Just do my thing. Some of those lines weren’t really there. We just improvised a couple of those lines. Sam knows us and knows how real we are. In that scene we didn’t really have no specific direction on where to go with that. Well Tristan and me didn’t. He told Storm instructions, but he didn’t give us instructions.
BlackFilm: The way the series is there’s a lot of night shoots. There are other actors from the series that are saying it took a year for the series to come out. From being Sam’s brainchild to what we see as a series on HBO. I know you’re both students based in Atlanta. How does that work with your schedule? Having to do these types of long shoots on the set? And balance your studies as high school students.
Tyler Timmons: It’s actually not that difficult because HBO does a good job of picking teachers to help with the kids on set. It’s just like we go to school, we come home and check email. If it says y’all are leaving in a week. And y’all are going to be back in two weeks. We’ll go to our school get a form signed and get all of our classes that we think we are going to be missing. Yeah, we work with the on set teachers. It’s always good.
BlackFilm: How do you feel about the depiction of drug use and other experimental things that are depicted on the show?
Tyler Timmons: I feel like the depiction of the drugs and the sex. All of those aspects of the show are important. So it can show this is really going on in the modern high schools. A lot of people don’t realize this is what’s happening. The drugs everything, the pressures to have sex, everything. Is what’s really happening in high school nowadays. There’s no shows’ really talking about sex issues. So most people probably feel alone. Because they feel they are going through it by themselves. They’re always presenting high school as one great big beautiful place when in reality it’s not always like that.
BlackFilm: How did you both get into acting? When did you decide to create your YouTube channel to showcase your talents?
Tristan Timmons: We actually got into acting, because before all of the acting stuff, we used to dance on Instagram. So one day we had a show at this place and we were performing. We were talking to the crowd and our agents at BYSB talent they were there. They were basically like why is everybody going so crazy for them? So eventually we had a meeting and we were like okay we’re going to try it. Then our first audition we got it. So we were like all right this is our thing. The YouTube channel came 2016—some time. We made a Q&A video for our friends on Instagram. That video blew up so our YouTube channel went with it.
BlackFilm: How important is the content that you produce on Youtube and Instagram with you having a presence on social media to the success of your careers?
Tristan Timmons: I think social media has the biggest impact on our careers. Because without social media, we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to perform at the place. We would have never met our agents. We wouldn’t be acting right now. At least if we were acting right now it wouldn’t be on this scale.
BlackFilm: Who is your favorite actor that inspired you to get into the business?
Tristan Timmons: My favorite actors are Mike Epps, Chris Tucker and Ice Cube.
BlackFilm: Why did you choose those three people from the industry?
Tristan Timmons: I chose them because they always bring comedy to any situation. It could be a sad situation—a crying situation—any situation. They just bring the comedy and make someone enjoy the movie.
BlackFilm: Tyler, do you have favorite actors in the industry, that you look up to or comedians?
Tyler Timmons: Chris Tucker for sure on the acting side. And on the comedy side Chris Tucker. For the comedy side DC Young Fly.
BlackFilm: Would you consider yourselves comedians as well as actors? What are your plans for the rest of your careers? Because you’re just getting started in the industry.
Tristan Timmons: If you were to ask a lot of people that we’ve worked with that know us. They would probably say that we’re comedians. We’re just some funny dudes. As far as our career goes, we’re just going to keep expanding our horizons—expanding our brand.
BlackFilm: Do you have any other projects that we can look for you to star in or act in? There has been a lot of buzz around the series Euphoria. It also was just picked up for a second season. Have you been getting a lot of offers pouring in since the show has been so successful?
Tristan Timmons: Yeah, we have been getting quite a few business calls but nothing we can speak on.
BlackFilm: Who is the oldest of the two of you? Do you ever have conversations about that inspired by whoever was born first?
Tyler Timmons: It’s almost an everyday conversation about how I’m not older than him. Because he’s older—because it’s only one minute. We go back and forth on that issue a lot. But I’m oldest by one minute.
BlackFilm: What do you want the audience to take away from Euphoria? What do you want teens and young people in general to know about the series?
Tyler Timmons: I feel like I want them to watch the show and just if anybody is going through anything. Just so they know—yeah I’m not alone. If people have drug problems or people are sad. This stuff happens to other teenagers around the world. I’m not alone. I want them to feel like they’re not alone also. If you’re just cool and you don’t have any personal issues like that, you can watch it and just be like—wow this show is crazy. If you’re looking for some jaw droppers or some shockers—and a little bit of laughter too. You want to go and watch Euphoria.
BlackFilm: What do you want the parents to know about the series? The ones who have reservations about the controversy surrounding what has been shown on the show?
Tristan Timmons: I think the parents should really pay attention to every character’s storyline. Because every storyline of every character shows different routes of life that people can take. Fez is a drug dealer. Zendaya— she’s just came from rehab. Storm—she’s going through a lot of stuff, because of her sister’s O.D. Everybody has different avenues. You know parents should pay attention, because if you pay attention closely. If you really sit there and analyze it, you can see a lot of emotions and the signs of whatever character it is. Potentially if the parents see their child with some of those same signs and tendencies, they can prevent them from going down a bad road.
BlackFilm: You think it’s good for parents to watch it with their kids? And then create that dialogue of conversation that they would not have had with their children if they had not watched a series like this show?
Tyler Timmons: I feel like Euphoria is one of the best ways a parent can do that. Because it creates that comfort zone after you finish watching the episode. You’re like wow; I want to speak about it. Now a parent and kid can go back and forth on the issues. Now they have a comfort zone. Where it’s hey I’m comfortable, if I’m going through anything we can speak about it.
BlackFilm: There’s been another discussion about the series. It’s the fact that it’s not saying that it’s a definite part of the country that it’s set in. People picked up on the fact that at the point where Rue is leaving rehab. You see the license plate on the family car. It doesn’t say that it’s a particular part of the country. How you feel about the fact that they are showing that it could be any place in America that this takes place?
Tyler Timmons: I think that is a really good idea. Because it shows that it could be anywhere you know. It’s that these things can happen anywhere not just in California or Atlanta or Chicago. It can happen anywhere. That’s a really good idea that they put it into the show.
Euphoria airs Sunday on HBO.
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