Sydney Sweeney may play a teenager on "Euphoria" but she'd rather not be reminded of how she looked herself at that age.
The 24-year-old actor had a hilarious response on Tuesday after "Tonight Show" host Jimmy Fallon flashed a photo of her as a sophomore in high school.
It all happened when Fallon showed viewers a few popular internet memes featuring Cassie, Sweeney's sweet but troubled character on "Euphoria." Before long, he held up a photo of a heavily made-up Cassie wearing a low-cut blouse next to a pic of the real teenage Sweeney, wearing a no-fuss sweatshirt and a ponytail.
"Oh no!" Sweeney said, putting her hands over her mouth in mortification as Fallon held up the image.
Sweeney identified that she's wearing an old sweatshirt in the photo, revealing that her family does Christmas sweaters every year, which is how she knew when the photo was taken.
"The best part, too, are my shoes," she said. "I'm wearing, like, army boots."
Sweeney, who stars alongside Zendaya, Jacob Elordi and Maude Apatow in the hit HBO drama "Euphoria," told Fallon that she dreamed of being an actor ever since she was a child growing up in Spokane, Washington. In fact, at age 11, she created a persuasive slideshow presentation to convince her parents to let her give an acting career a shot.
"I put together a five-year business plan presentation about what could happen if they let me," she recalled.
When Fallon asked how a kid could have come up with that kind of presentation, Sweeney credited the internet.
"Google has a lot of information," she said, laughing.
But it turns out, a career in Hollywood has been much more work than Sweeney once believed.
"It was a little harder than I imagined," she told Fallon, adding, "It's not as glamorous as you think it is."
In January, after the second season of "Euphoria" premiered, Sweeney opened up about facing criticism on social media for the amount of nudity from her character and on the show at large.
In an interview with the Independent, Sweeney said she felt there was “a stigma against actresses who get naked on screen," but said she never felt pressure to disrobe from "Euphoria" director Sam Levinson.
“There are moments where Cassie was supposed to be shirtless and I would tell Sam, ‘I don’t really think that’s necessary here.’ He was like, ‘OK, we don’t need it,’” Sweeney explained. “I’ve never felt like Sam has pushed it on me or was trying to get a nude scene into an HBO show. When I didn’t want to do it, he didn’t make me.”
In March, Sweeney told Ellen DeGeneres that her grandparents approve of her steamy sex scenes on "Euphoria." The actor recalled that after the series premiere, her grandmother and grandfather lovingly told her she had "best t--- in Hollywood.”
Sweeney's grandmother, Velma, who was sitting in DeGeneres' audience, stood by her word, giving Sweeney a proud thumbs up.
"Grandma approves," joked DeGeneres.