Diksha Sundriyal
Life moves beyond the trappings of high school in the third season of HBO’s ‘Euphoria.’ Just when Rue thinks she has escaped her past, it comes back knocking at her door in the form of Laurie, who pulls her back into the world of drugs. After spending months working as a drug mule, Rue finds an escape when she meets Alamo. He runs a strip club called the Silver Slipper, where he puts Rue in a managerial position. What seems like a way to start over her life is slowly revealed to be a much darker place, making Rue realize that she may have made a deal with the devil. The strip club becomes a central location for the entirety of the third season, and its realistic portrayal adds a new dimension to the story. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Fictional Silver Slipper was Brought to Life by Elaborate Sets
The Silver Slipper is a fictional strip bar in the third season of ‘Euphoria.’ The exteriors of the place were built by the show’s production team in Lancaster, California, while the interiors were built on a stage in Warner Bros Studio. Notably, it was on the same stage where Rick’s Café Américain was built for ‘Casablanca.’ The show’s creator, Sam Levinson, had a particular vision for the strip club, right from its interiors and its vibes to the giant leg in its exterior. Reportedly, the idea of the leg came to him from the picture of a 1930s nightclub in Hollywood in a black-and-white photography book he had. He also wanted to give a Western touch to the third season, and the strip club was also built along the same lines.
In an interview with IndieWire, production designer François Audouy said that his intention was to make the Silver Slipper like a saloon from a Western, along with a “funky 1970s and 1980s vibe.” Levinson used varied reference points, not limited to the movies, to bring the Western touch and make it look like something that its owner, Alamo, would have designed himself. This included Mike Tyson’s old house in Ohio, which gave them the idea of “mixing zebra print and cheetah print.” In the same vein, to represent the predatory vibe of the place, set decorator Anthony Carlino brought in the taxidermy of predatory animals. They also made sure that the place felt lived in for the actors, that every drawer and door opened into something real.
At the same time, the set’s creators also made sure to add details that would allow the director and cameraperson to shoot the scenes from different angles, like creating holes in the walls and adding two-way mirrors, among other things. Another thing that Levinson focused on was making the place feel old school, which meant, for example, using tungsten lights instead of strobe lighting. More than anything else, the Silver Slipper was meant to present the juxtaposition of sin and redemption in Rue’s context. Levinson explained that the strip club becomes an “oasis” for her, but eventually, she starts to see its darkness. This becomes a lesson for her about “what happens when you just follow your desire as opposed to your sense of right and wrong.”
Read More: What Happened to Fezco? Is Angus Cloud in Euphoria Season 3?
