Hunter Schafer’s Week: A New York Whirlwind

Hunter Schafer’s Week: A New York Whirlwind

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Hunter Schafer’s eyes drilled a hole through her gray hotel room wall, and her left hand cut her cheek as if, by wishing hard enough, she could convince the events of the day she was trying to recall.

“Let’s see, I know I did the Gotham Awards yesterday?” the 21-year-old transgender model and outburst of HBO’s “EuphoriaSaid in a video call earlier this month.

Not quite – the ceremony was the day before.

“My bad,” she says, smiling in a light blue hoodie and black Carhartt-style jacket after returning from an outdoor photo shoot on a cold New York afternoon. “The time is currently confusing.”

The past year and a half has been a whirlwind for Schafer since she made her debut as Jules opposite Zendaya’s addicted tormented street in ‘Euphoria’, the Emmy-winning drama series about teenagers dealing with the temptations of drug use on a Southern California height visit school. Schafer delivers a sensitive, gut-wrenching performance as a 17-year-old transgender girl struggling with depression, bullying and gender dysphoria and a love interest that apparently cannot stay clean.

And now she’s taking another leap – in writing. Schafer co-wrote with creator “Euphoria” Sam Levinson the second special episode of the show, which airs Sunday on HBO Max. “The writing process took months,” she said. “There was a week in which we spent hours on the phone every day watching the episode.”

Schafer kept an eye on her cultural diary while she was in New York for the thirtieth annual Gotham Independent Film Awards earlier this month, from her red-eye arrival on January 10 to falling asleep to screaming music two days later. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

I slept on my red-eye flight to New York, where I would be presenting at the Gotham Independent Film Awards on Monday night. I went to the “KajillionêrSoundtrack in the car on the way to my hotel in SoHo. I’m terrified of how beautiful Emile Mosseri‘s songs are – I kept listening to them.

I was walking around downtown while listening to this Aaron Cartier album that one of my LA friends put me on, “Aaron Cartier Best Dog. “It’s energetic and gets my New York endorphins going. Then I sat in bed and watched the series finale of ‘Veneno’, which is my favorite show I watched recently. It made me super emo, but it has some of the best versions of trans femmes I’ve seen on TV in a long time – maybe ever.

I went to dinner with some friends in my pod KazuNori, it’s this sushi place with amazing hand rolls. They just turn it there and bring it out fresh so that the seaweed is still crunchy and the rice is so soft. Definite upgrade from the packaged microwave meals I have lived on before. Then my friend and I came to this lingerie store across the street, WIL Pharmacist, and got these little striped dresses – just for fun, because it’s important to dress up and keep a quarantined show to yourself.

Back at my hotel I watch the anime movie “Ghost in the shellTo go to sleep, which was haunting and gave me simulation vibrations. Being in that existential headspace has affected my dreams in a strange way.

I’m really bad at pressing the sleep button in the morning, so I need something courageous to wake me up – I use the usual annoying iPhone alarm. But I also fell asleep Kajillionêr soundtrack, so I get pretty little bits of it in my five minutes before my alarm goes off again.

One thing that has changed since the beginning of the pandemic is my shower routine. When I was filming, I was obsessed with this thing my friend told me you could do where you turn the spray head completely cold at the end of your shower and let it sit in the freezing water for 30 seconds. It brings you to life.

I chose my outfits earlier in the evening in high school, but now that I live out of a suitcase, I have reworked my wardrobe so that everything goes together, so I am never too stressed about whether my outfit makes sense. One of my favorite T-shirts is from the LA brand Come tees, which has beautiful prints of animated characters, is very bright and colorful.

Hair and makeup came in to get me ready for the Gotham Awards. I wore a slavery dress by Matthew Williams Givenchy collection with a belt full of gold padlocks and a necklace from my friend Darius Khonsary’s new jewelry collection, Darius Jewels. She made this incredible collection of gold pieces of antique look that are also modern and mythical.

I sat at my own table, socially distanced from the other presenters, at the Gotham Awards event in Cipriani Wall Street. I handed out the short form Breakthrough Series Award, which I was so glad to see ‘I may destroy you“win. That show took me out when it came out last year – it was [expletive] unbelievable. I’m a big Michaela Coel fan.

I got back to my hotel around 10pm, where I ordered vegetable fried rice and stripped to my underwear. Then I flipped through my friends’ Instagram stories. Gogo Graham, who is a fashion designer, has a great feed – I have every floor every time she releases new garments. And Dara Allen, a stylist and model I used to work with, is a dream – I’m fascinated by the amazing look she creates from her wild collection of clothes.

I have been listening to a lot of varied music lately: “Break, “Davia Spain’s jazzy debut album, and rapper Quay Dash’s EP”Transphobies. “And my friend Tweaks has just come out with a new EP,”Older now,What this futuristic, experimental thing is.

I came across this album, ‘Hunter Schafer’s boyfriend, ”By an artist named CHASE after someone noticed me on Twitter. I was like, “What is this?” Then I listened to it, and it’s actually sick. I really enjoyed it – there is something electronic and poppy about it, but also elements of rap and maybe a little screamo as well.

I walk to a Japanese restaurant, AOI kitchen, with three themed mini-houses – there were flowers on the wall, and it felt like a little fairy house. It did not feel like I was in New York at all. They had very good tofu, mushrooms and sake. Then I walked back to my hotel and listened to screaming music before relaxing in something calmer – some songs from Colleen, which sounds like something plants would dance on.

I like to draw by the window in my hotel in New York, coffee in hand – it’s my dream of a day. I love Basquiat, Egon Schiele and Sage Adams. I go through waves for a few weeks where I really draw, and then I put it aside a bit because I don’t feel so creative. Hopefully I will go through one again soon.

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