In the first season of Euphoria, Lexi Howard was relegated to a background character in the more chaotic lives of her friends and family. Played by Maude Apatow in her breakout role, Lexi finally took the spotlight in Season 2, when she staged the most elaborate musical in the history of high school theater.
The once sheepish Lexi lets her inner tyrant loose as she hurls insults at the crew and directs the production with comically scary precision. While Apatow never got quite as heated when she starred in her high school productions of Cabaret and Into the Woods, those experiences certainly informed Lexi’s arc. “I sorta pitched our showrunner the idea of Lexi being a theater kid who took her craft too seriously,” Apatow tells Vogue. “And that was absolutely inspired by me being a musical theater obsessive who freaked out a lot of people in high school!”
Apatow can trace her love of theater back to a single show: Little Shop of Horrors. She was in the first grade when her neighbor starred in a children’s production of the musical and would play the ‘60s doo-wop-inspired cast recording. Apatow fell in love and downloaded it onto her iPod Nano immediately, listening to “Suddenly, Seymour” and “Somewhere That’s Green” on an endless loop. When her filmmaker father Judd Apatow was shooting a project in North Carolina, she made the family attend a local production of Little Shop that officially opened her eyes to the magic of theater.
“I’ve always been obsessed with the musical because it sort of introduced me to the genre as a whole,” she says. “When I heard there was a chance I could send in my materials to audition for the role of Audrey, it seemed too good to be true.”
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Originally staged Off-Off-Broadway in 1982, the cult musical follows a dweeby florist named Seymour who finds a mysterious plant that feeds on human flesh while trying to win the affections of his coworker, Audrey. Campy, self-aware, and extremely fun for kids and adults alike, the show has enjoyed a long life thanks to the beloved 1986 film adaptation, paired with endless revivals, tours, and community theater productions over the last four decades. When an acclaimed Off-Broadway run starring Jonathan Groff as Seymour and Tammy Blanchard as Audrey opened in 2019, Apatow rushed to New York to see it immediately… then again…and again.
Apatow’s dream has always been to perform onstage. She even studied theater at Northwestern University before dropping out sophomore year for Euphoria. For years, the intense shooting schedule of the series didn’t give Apatow the time to join a theater production—but with Season 3 not scheduled to begin shooting until the latter half of 2023, Apatow found herself with an open window, just as Little Shop of Horrors was looking for an actress to succeed then-Audrey, Lena Hall.
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Director Michael Mayer was already familiar with Apatow’s work when word got to his casting office that she was a Little Shop super-fan. He watched her grow up in Knocked Up and This Is 40, playing the daughter of her real-life mother, Leslie Mann. And like most of America, Mayer is a Euphoria obsessive who giggled at the thought of directing the esteemed Lexi Howard in her New York stage debut. He asked to get on a call with Apatow to discuss his vision for the show and the possibility of having her audition for the role of Audrey.
“It was clear after she sang for us that she’d be an incredible addition to the cast,” Mayer told Vogue. “Maude brings a sweet innocence and untrammeled sincerity to the character that makes the audience feel protective of her.”
Howard Ashman’s original script for Little Shop of Horrors describes the love of Seymour’s life—brought to life by everyone from Ellen Greene to Trisha Paytas—as such: “If you took Judy Holiday, Carol Channing, Marilyn Monroe, and Goldie Hawn, removed their education and feelings of self-worth, dressed them in spiked heels and a low-cut dress, shook them up in a test tube to extract what's sweetest and most vulnerable—that’d be Audrey.” Apatow’s Audrey retains the spiked heels and thick Noo Yawk accent while finding new emotional layers to the character.
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“I feel really connected to her in a way that makes me really excited as an actor, because that doesn’t always happen with a character,” she says. Apatow has long dealt with intense bouts of stage fright and told herself that performing eight shows a week for two months would be like exposure therapy. She tries to channel that vulnerability into her performance in ways that serve the character. “I’ve been in a blind panic for this entire first week of shows,” she half-jokes. “The biggest challenge has been to not feel so precious about messing up anything, and just remembering that I’ll have a chance to do the show all over again tomorrow night.”
Apatow will play Audrey in the production through at least April 2. Her parents have already seen the show several times, with other pals like Kate Hudson, Chase Sui Wonders, and Lydia Night also coming out to support. Apatow is proud of the show and wants all her friends to come out and see how much fun the cast and crew have every night. “There are people at the theater who started working on the show four years ago and they still aren’t sick of it,” she says.
And while fans are constantly sliding into Apatow’s DMs, begging her for intel on what’s going to happen next on Euphoria, she’s just as curious as they are. “I honestly don’t know a single thing,” she says. “We should be getting scripts and hearing about next season soon-ish, but I’m totally in the dark!”
Right now she’s just focused on being the best Audrey possible. Stage fright aside, it’s been a dream for her to walk into the Westside Theater for work every day and feel so embraced by the community. “If younger me saw that I got to play Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors one day, she would be losing her mind,” Apatow says. “I can’s stress enough how lucky and grateful I feel for this opportunity.” Lexi Howard would certainly be proud.