After three long years of production delays and uncertainty, the dysfunctional high-school drama is finally back on track as HBO’s Euphoria Season 3 gears up for its much-anticipated 2026 premiere. Despite getting renewed midway through Season 2, the Sam Levinson–created series remained in limbo amid reports that its scheduled 2025 shoot had been shelved. Thankfully for fans, production resumed in February 2025 and wrapped in November, with HBO recently confirming the upcoming season’s launch window.
Following an explosive second season that left nearly every character on the verge of something life-altering, Euphoria Season 3 will once again bring together Rue Bennett (Zendaya), Jules Vaughn (Hunter Schafer), Cassie Howard (Sydney Sweeney), Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi), and the rest of the emotionally volatile ensemble as their lives take unexpected turns. While the big specifics currently remain under wraps, HBO’s previous announcements and recent comments from the cast and Levinson himself give us a solid sense of what could be in store this season. So, from the expected release window to the cast and story, here’s everything we know so far about HBO’s Euphoria Season 3.
Euphoria Season 3: Release Date and Episodes
It’s official! Euphoria Season 3 will premiere on HBO Max sometime in April 2026. The network announced the release window via a post on X, along with our very first look at Zendaya’s Rue Bennett and the caption “Let’s Ride”. Another good reason to be excited is that the TV series will be a full-fledged, eight-episode season, similar to the past two announced by HBO and Max Content Chairman and CEO Casey Bloys back in July 2024.
Euphoria Season 3: Cast
The core East Highland crew will be back for Euphoria Season 3, with Zendaya leading the cast once again as Rue Bennett, joined by Hunter Schafer as Jules Vaughn, Maude Apatow as Lexi Howard, Sydney Sweeney as Cassie Howard, Alexa Demie as Maddy Perez, and Jacob Elordi as Nate Jacobs. Colman Domingo will also reprise his role as Ali, alongside Dominic Fike as Elliot and Eric Dane as Cal Jacobs.
Other returning cast members include Martha Kell as the drug dealer Laurie, Chloe Cherry as Faye, Alanna Ubach, Daeg Faerch, Melvin “Bonez” Estes, Paula Marshall, Sophia Rose Wilson, and Zak Steiner.
Season 3 will also see 18 new cast members joining the fold, including Danielle Deadwyler, Natasha Lyonne, Colleen Camp, actor-director Eli Roth, and YouTube personality Trisha Paytas. They’ll be joined by Kwame Patterson, Madison Thompson, Sam Trammell, Rebecca Pidgeon, former NFL player Matthew Willig, Cailyn Rice, Bella Podaras, Gideon Adlon, Jessica Blair Herman, Bill Bodner, Jack Topalian, Hemky Madera, and Homer Gere, alongside Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Toby Wallace.
If that wasn’t enough, the upcoming season is also bringing in several high-profile newcomers, ranging from Sharon Stone, Spanish singer-songwriter Rosalía, former NFL star Marshawn Lynch, and The Chi actor Kadeem Hardison. However, it’s currently unclear which characters they’ll play or how they’ll fit into the larger plot.
Here are all the confirmed cast members for Euphoria Season 3 so far:
- Zendaya as Rue Bennett
- Hunter Schafer as Jules Vaughn
- Maude Apatow as Alexis “Lexi” Howard
- Sydney Sweeney as Cassie Howard
- Alexa Demie as Maddy Perez
- Jacob Elordi as Nate Jacobs
- Colman Domingo as Ali
- Dominic Fike as Elliot
- Eric Dane as Cal Jacobs
- Martha Kelly as Laurie
- Chloe Cherry as Faye
- Alanna Ubach as Suze Howard
- Daeg Faerch as Mitch
- Melvin “Bonez” Estes as Bruce
- Paula Marshall as Marsha Jacobs
- Sophia Rose Wilson as BB
- Zak Steiner as Aaron Jacobs
- Sharon Stone
- Rosalía
- Marshawn Lynch
- Kadeem Hardison
- Danielle Deadwyler
- Natasha Lyonne
- Colleen Camp
- Eli Roth
- Trisha Paytas
- Kwame Patterson
- Madison Thompson
- Sam Trammell
- Rebecca Pidgeon
- Matthew Willig
- Cailyn Rice
- Bella Podaras
- Gideon Adlon
- Jessica Blair Herman
- Bill Bodner
- Jack Topalian
- Hemky Madera
- Homer Gere
- Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
- Toby Wallace
What Will Euphoria Season 3 Be About?
Given that Season 2 ended with a pile of unresolved threads, the big question going into Euphoria Season 3 is what happens next? Almost every major character stood at a crossroads after the finale, and the upcoming season is expected to revisit at least some of those tensions. Rue’s long-term fallout from addiction will remain a major focus and Season 3 might also explore her fractured relationship with Hunter Schafer’s Jules.
However, the upcoming season may not continue the story in the way we think it will. Along with sharing the release window, series creator Levinson confirmed the long-rumoured time jump in Euphoria Season 3 that’ll (likely) move the story several years forward. Describing the new season as “our best season yet,” the creator followed it up with a deluge of new details about the upcoming season, mentioning where each character would be when Season 3 premieres.
As per Variety, during an HBO Max presentation in London, Levinson explained, “Five years felt like a natural place because if they’d gone to college they’d be out of college at that time. We basically pick up Rue south of the border in Mexico, in debt to Laurie, trying to come up with some very innovative ways to pay it off.” Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter back in 2022, Zendaya had expressed her desire that she would like to see Rue’s sobriety journey outside the familiar setting and watch the rest of the cast figure out “what kind of people they want to be” once the training wheels come off.
“I think it’ll be exciting to explore the characters out of high school. I want to see what Rue looks like in her sobriety journey, how chaotic that might look,” Zendaya told The Hollywood Reporter. The actress further went on to add, “But also with all the characters, in the sense where they’re trying to figure out what to do with their lives when high school is over and what kind of people they want to be. What was special about this season was that we got to dive into [the other characters] in a much deeper sense. I think we can do that again with the third season.”
Levinson also went on to confirm that the upcoming season is going to include a wedding for Sydney Sweeney’s Cassie and Jacob Elordi’s Nate, who have been living together since high school ended. “Cassie is living in the suburbs with Nate, they’re engaged, and she’s very addicted to social media and envious of what appears to be the big lives that all of her high school classmates are living at this point in time,” Levinson shared. “I will say that Cassie and Nate do in fact get married. I’m confirming it. And I promise that it will be an unforgettable night.”
Talking about those “big lives”, Levinson mentioned that Hunter Schafer’s Jules “is in art school, very nervous about having a career as a painter, and trying to avoid responsibility at all costs.” Meanwhile, Alexa Demie’s Maddy “is working in Hollywood at a talent agency for a manager, she’s obviously got her own side hustles going.” Lastly, Lexi is working as an assistant to a showrunner played by Sharon Stone, “who is just absolutely delightful and a true icon.”
Colman Domingo, who plays Ali, also teased that with Euphoria Season 3, creator Levinson will be taking “big swings.” While talking to Deadline, Domingo said, “It’s an organism, and [Levinson] wants it to keep shifting it in many ways and I think he’s going to take some really big swings actually with season 3.” The actor also revealed that Levinson wants to “smash” audiences’ expectations, adding, “He’s someone who, once there’s an expectation of the show, he wants to smash that expectation because he truly is a consummate artist, and he wants to make sure he’s telling some really compelling storytelling. And just because we had some successes before with this season, he said, ‘Let’s not rely on that. Let’s move forward. I’m going to go deeper with these characters. I’m going to really peel away the layers of them and just get to the human heart.’”
Domingo also expanded on the time jump and how it’ll affect his character in a recent interview with W magazine, saying, “It’s some years later, and you find our characters in other circumstances. We get the treat of actually peeling back a little bit more of the Ali that we’ve come to know. We have to understand how he got there.”
For the longest time now, Sydney Sweeney, who plays Cassie Howard, has been teasing just how wild the upcoming season will get. Speaking with Empire, she called Euphoria Season 3 “unhinged” and said Cassie’s emotional spiral continues to evolve in surprising ways. “I have such a spot in my heart for Cassie, and I hold her really close and dear,” Sweeney explained. “She is crazy. She makes so many mistakes. She’s flawed on so many levels, but she does it all from a place of love. It could be a sad version of love, as well. It’s so much fun to play a character that is as crazy as she is.”
It looks like Euphoria Season 3 will be nothing short of an emotional rollercoaster packed with revelations.
Are There Any Other Shows Like Euphoria?
While you wait for Euphoria Season 3, you can fill the void with other psychological teen and high-school dramas like Sex Education and Heartbreak High on Netflix, Mood on Prime Video, or HBO Max’s We Are Who We Are if you want something closer to Euphoria’s emotional intensity.
