Angus Cloud was the Euphoria underdog we were all rooting for

Five years ago, Angus Cloud, an Oakland native, was walking down a Manhattan street with a friend, when the pair were stopped by a woman claiming to work for a casting company. She asked them both to come in and read for a new TV series. His friend called bulls***, thinking it was a scam. Cloud, who was 20 and working in a chicken and waffle joint, suspected the same – but went anyway. Because, well, why not? Fast forward one year, Cloud found himself starring alongside Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney in Euphoria. Sam Levinson’s buzzy and provocative drama about misbehaving teens (think Skins but American) would go on to win Emmys for its stark portrayal of adolescence and become the second-most watched series in HBO history. Cloud’s character, Fezco, a perennially chill drug dealer, quickly emerged as a fan favourite – as did the actor playing him.

Cloud was, by all counts, a star on the rise. His arresting turn in season two, which made spectacular use of a minor storyline, was further proof of his upward trajectory – a trajectory that has been tragically and suddenly cut short with his early death. It was announced on Monday that the actor, born Conor Angus Cloud Hickey, had died aged 25 at his family home in Oakland, California.

“It is with the heaviest heart that we had to say goodbye to an incredible human today,” his family said in a statement, which went on to reference the actor’s struggles with mental health, though a cause of death was not given. “We hope that his passing can be a reminder to others that they are not alone and should not fight this on their own in silence.” The only “comfort”, it adds, is that “Angus is now reunited with his dad, who was his best friend”. One of Cloud’s final Instagram posts is of his father, captioned: “Miss u breh.”

As is always the case when someone dies very young, the news has shaken the industry, as his peers and his fans mourn someone gone much too soon. “There was no one quite like Angus,” said Levinson. “He was too special, too talented and way too young to leave us so soon.” His co-star Colman Domingo remembered Cloud’s smile, writing on Instagram, “That was his smile. That was him. May he rest sweetly in peace.” As the tributes pour in, people are remembering the exceptional talent of this by-chance star – and his beloved character, with whom he was so often conflated.

Reflecting on his shock at being scouted that fateful day in Manhattan, Cloud told i-D magazine that his casting made more sense once he learned who they wanted him to play. “In my mind, I was like, they stopped me because I look like I could be a star?” he recalled. “Then I’m like, no, it’s because I look like a drug dealer.” Playing Euphoria’s resident high school supplier for two seasons, Cloud was the show’s deceptively soft centre – but he did more than fulfil the “drug dealer with a heart of gold” trope. Cloud was as believable as a de facto father figure to his pint-sized accomplice Ashtray (Javon Walton) and friend to Rue (Zendaya) as he was a menacing presence capable of violence.

Admittedly, it is easy to confuse Cloud with his character, as so many people have done so in the past. The two shared a generosity of spirit and underdog attitude. Fez’s lethargic California drawl is Cloud’s own – partly the result of a traumatic brain injury the actor suffered after falling into a construction pit when he was 15. (“I mix the front of one word and the back of the next,” he said in an interview last year. “I’ll scribble-scrabble two words together. Mix-match.”) Perhaps most striking, though, was the impression both he and his character left on you: watching from the outside, you simply wanted to see them win.

To assume they were one and the same, though, would take away from the actor’s performance – something that niggled at Cloud in his lifetime. “It does bother me when people are like, ‘It must be so easy! You get to go in and be yourself.’ I’m like, ‘Why don’t you go and do that?’ It’s not that simple,” he told Variety. “I brought a lot to the character. You can believe what you want. It ain’t got nothing to do with me.” The casting director for Euphoria, Jennifer Venditti, similarly argued that Cloud doesn’t get enough credit for his work on the show, which would go on to be singled out in stellar reviews. “[I’ve] been doing this for a while, in terms of working with non-actors, and a lot of people can’t do it,” she said. “It’s not just showing up and being yourself on camera.”

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It’s true that Cloud did not have any aspirations to be famous (he said so himself on multiple occasions and backed it up by maintaining a low-key presence in the industry). The “laid back stoner” vibe he exuded in interviews, however, belied professional ambition. He went on to star in The Line, a thriller that required him to take on a different accent to his own, and will posthumously appear in Freaky Tales opposite Pedro Pascal and Ben Mendelsohn. (“I hope I did a good job,” he said of his work on The Line. “I ain’t tryna be no one-trick pony”.) Acting wasn’t his be-all and end-all, though. Last year, Cloud told Variety “there’s plenty of other stuff I could see myself doing”. Like what? “Buy a boat. Find an island. Post up in a tent,” he said, in a throwaway comment that now feels unbearably sad. “See what happens next.”