HBO’s Euphoria has made stars out of Sydney Sweeney, Hunter Schafer, and Jacob Elordi, but one of its biggest star-making moments was casting Angus Cloud. The actor is known for his distinctive voice and looks, especially the scar on his forehead. Cloud recently shared the serious accident behind how he got the injury.
How Angus Cloud scored his starring role on ‘Euphoria’
Cloud grew up in Oakland, California, where he attended the School of Product Design at Oakland School for the Arts. His Euphoria co-star Zendaya also attended the performing arts high school.
After graduation, Cloud headed to New York, where he worked at a restaurant in Brooklyn. It was there that he was scouted by Euphoria’s casting director, Jennifer Venditti. His role as local drug dealer Fezco catapulted him to stardom. However, a scary accident in 2013 could have ended his career success before it even began.
Angus Cloud suffered ‘minor brain damage’ after dangerous fall
While talking to Variety, Cloud revealed that the scar on his scalp came from a broken skull — on Friday the 13th, no less. While walking home after hanging out with friends, Cloud accidentally fell into a construction pit.
“I woke up 12 hours later at the bottom,” he shared. “I was trapped. I eventually climbed out after — I don’t know how long. It was hella hard to climb out because my skull was broken, but my skin wasn’t, so all the bleeding was internal, pressing up against my brain. But they wasn’t [sic] gonna find me down there. I found myself. Or God found me, whatever you want to call it.”
Cloud managed to climb out of the 10-foot-deep pit and caught a bus home. His mother initially thought he was on drugs — “my pupils was hella dilated” — but after Cloud could not speak in clear sentences, she insisted they head to the hospital.
“My mama took me to the children’s hospital, and they saved my life,” Cloud explained. “That’s what the scar’s from. They cut my head open, they put some screws and a plate over where I broke my skull and — s–t, sealed me back up, and that was that.”
Cloud spent five days in the ICU and a few more in non-intensive care units as he recovered, but the actor shrugged off the incident.
“It was damn near like nothing really happened,” Cloud continued. “I’m so blessed to just have minor brain damage. You know, it’s so minor it ain’t even really worth speaking about.”
Angus Cloud’s upcoming movie roles
Angus cloud says acting is “the best job” he’s ever had, but also thinks there’s “plenty of other stuff” he could see himself doing. Like what?
“Buy a boat. Find an island. Post up in a tent. See what happens next.” //t.co/FZvKPVU0uH pic.twitter.com/WoKorZ2DSW
While Angus Cloud brings a lot of his own self to his acting, he’s not exactly the same person as his lovable “Euphoria” character, Fez. But there are plenty of striking similarities, and both he and Fez have definitely been through a lot, as Cloud described in a recent interview with Variety. “I broke my skull on Friday the 13th,” he said, finally clearing up the mystery surrounding the curved scar on the left side of his scalp. The legitimacy of this injury has been debated by fans of the show since Cloud’s debut, but he confirms that it is, in fact, real – and the events leading up to it were nearly fatal.
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One night in 2013, as he walked through his hometown in downtown Oakland, CA, the actor accidentally fell into a construction pit at least 10 feet deep – and he didn’t wake up until 12 hours later. “I was trapped,” he told Variety. Astonishingly, Cloud managed to out of the pit himself despite being seriously injured, including having broken his fingers, because “they wasn’t gonna find me down there,” he said in his interview. “I found myself. Or God found me, whatever you want to call it.”
“I found myself. Or God found me, whatever you want to call it.”
The story gets more jaw-dropping from there. After hauling himself out of the construction pit, Cloud took a bus back home to his mum’s house (and not a hospital – classic teen move). “She thought I was on drugs, ’cause my pupils was hella dilated. I was trying to tell her what happened, but I could only start a sentence – I couldn’t finish it. So I was like, ‘I’m just gonna go sleep in my bed,'” he said.
Luckily, his mother stopped him, giving Cloud some water and quickly realizing the urgency of the situation when he started vomiting blood. Cloud’s mom brought him to a hospital, where doctors cut open and repaired his fractured skull with screws and a plate.
He spent the next five days in the ICU “loaded off morphine” and then bounced between a few other nonintensive care units before he was officially discharged. “The brain is so fragile,” he said. But looking back on the experience now, he feels lucky that things didn’t turn out worse. “It was damn near like nothing really happened. I’m so blessed to just have minor brain damage. You know, it’s so minor it ain’t even really worth speaking about,” Cloud said.
Angus Cloud detailed the story behind the scar on his head.
In an interview with Variety published Wednesday, the 24-year-old actor — who plays drug dealer Fezco on the HBO series Euphoria — revealed that he had a bad fall that left him with a broken skull as a teenager in 2013.
"It's real," he told the publication, referring to the large scar on his head. "I broke my skull on Friday the 13th."
Cloud explained that he was walking home alone at night in Oakland, California, when he fell into a construction pit in the dark.
"I woke up 12 hours later at the bottom," he said, adding that he had internal bleeding in his skull and broken fingers.
"I was trapped. But they wasn't gonna find me down there," Cloud said. "I found myself. Or God found me, whatever you want to call it."
Realizing he would have to haul himself up out of the pit, he went into "survival mode" and climbed out before taking a bus back to his mother's house.
"She thought I was on drugs, 'cause my pupils was hella dilated," the actor continued, adding that his mom kept him awake and had him drink some water.
"I started throwing up hella mouthfuls of crimson red blood," Cloud said. "So then my mama took me to the children's hospital, and they saved my life. That's what the scar's from. They cut my head open, they put some screws and a plate over where I broke my skull and — s—, sealed me back up, and that was that."
In Euphoria, Cloud's character Fezco is accidentally hit in the head with a crowbar by his grandmother while he tries to stop a fight. The injury is used to explain why Fez dropped out of high school, and may account for the character's slow, sometimes mushy speech.
Cloud said he experiences that himself, sometimes. "I mix the front of one word with the back of the next," he said. "I'll scribble-scrabble two words together. Mix-match."
"The brain is so fragile," he said. His recovery required a hospital stay for just about a week. "It was damn near like nothing really happened. I'm so blessed to just have minor brain damage. You know, it's so minor it ain't even really worth speaking about."
"I did some physical therapy," he says about the period after his fall. "And actually, some speech therapy, but that's about it. Only for a couple weeks, 'cause I was like, 'Ehh.' "
courtesy Ralph Lauren FragrancesHowever, Cloud wants everyone to know that he is not just playing himself, despite any similarities between himself and Fez.
"It's not that simple," he said. "I brought a lot to the character. You can believe what you want. It ain't got nothing to do with me."
Cloud, who is acting in other projects after his debut in Euphoria, is also getting into the fashion game as the new face of Polo by Ralph Lauren Fragrances. He fronts the latest digital campaign celebrating iconic scents Polo Green, Polo Red and Polo Blue.
Cloud has long been an enthusiastic supporter of Polo Ralph Lauren, collecting more than 200 shirts with the iconic pony logo over the years. In another parallel between Cloud's real life and his character, Fezco can also be seen donning Polo shirts on screen.
"Every time I was in the thrift store, anything with a Polo pony on it, I would grab that," Cloud said. "At a certain point, I realized I hadn't worn a t-shirt in a couple months … that was the start of it, collecting Polo ponies."