Euphoria took the world by storm when it hit HBO in 2019, but the show was actually based on an earlier Israeli drama. The raunchy HBO series follows a group of high schoolers experimenting with drugs, sex, and toxic relationships. The series took Zendaya from a Disney Channel and Spider-Man actress to a two-time Emmy-winning star. Zendaya portrays the main character Rue Bennett, a high school student dealing with drug addiction and coping with the death of her father. Her addiction causes tension and chaos in her family, but she finds solace in her friend and ex-girlfriend Jules, played by Hunter Schafer.
The show has gained a lot of positive and negative attention. While fans spent all of Super Bowl 2022 anticipating the fight between Maddy Perez and Cassie Howard over their shared love interest Nate Jacobs, they’ve also found some issues with the show’s creator Sam Levison. Euphoria fans are upset with Levinson over his role in Barbie Ferreira’s exit from the show and the extreme amounts of nudity in the episodes. However, Levinson may have just been following in the footsteps of the Israeli Euphoria series, which his HBO drama is based on.
Euphoria Was Originally An Israeli TV Show
Levinson’s HBO series was based on the Israeli show of the same name. The original was created by Ron Leshem, who works as an executive producer on the HBO series and has written episodes of Levison’s show. There are many differences between the series, but the overall themes remain the same. The Israel series also followed a group of high schoolers coping with growing up surrounded by drugs, violence, and all the other chaos being a teenager entails. The Israeli series is based on a real-life murder that happened outside a club and is set one year after the murder, following the lives of teens coping with the incident.
Aside from the Israeli series, Levinson also took inspiration from his own life. The Euphoria creator has been open about his own drug addiction as a teenager and young adult and how it inspired Rue’s story. Levinson spent his young adult life in and out of hospitals and rehab facilities before getting clean at 19 and remaining that way ever since. Levinson mixed the messages and storylines in the Israeli Euphoria with his own life experiences to create the HBO series.
HBO’s Euphoria Is Very Different To The Original
While there are a lot of similarities between the two shows in regard to plots and characters, the Euphoria shows also have some drastic differences. The Israeli Euphoria is set in the 90s, showcasing the growing tension between Israel and Palestine and how it affected the teens living in that environment. Another huge difference is the main character is narrating from the afterlife. While Euphoria fans have had many theories that Rue is dead, the showrunners have never confirmed this. Other differences are the character Fez is based on isn’t a drug dealer, and the parents aren’t present on Israeli Euphoria. Still, both series share the same messages.
