Hunter Schafer

• 1. Introduction

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  Hunter Schafer found the casting call that changed her life on Instagram. It asked for transgender girls and required no acting experience. At that point she was a young artist and model who had planned to study clothing design in London. Within a few years she had starred in a Hunger Games film, directed music videos, and become the face of luxury fashion houses. Her rise raises questions this documentary will follow. How did a teenager become a public figure before she had even finished high school? What did it cost her to be seen first as a symbol? And how does she now describe the balance between representation and simply living her own life?

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• 2. Raleigh Beginnings

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  Hunter Schafer was born on the 31st of December 1998 in Trenton, New Jersey. Her father was a pastor, so the family followed his work from congregation to congregation, first in New Jersey, then Arizona, and finally Raleigh, North Carolina. She grew up there with three younger siblings, two sisters and a brother.

  By her own account, Schafer began expressing femininity as a toddler. In seventh grade she came out to her parents as a gay boy. Gender dysphoria began to weigh on her in eighth grade, and in ninth grade she came out as a transgender girl. After a diagnosis of dysphoria she began to transition. She has also said she once questioned whether a non-binary identity fit her better.

  The Internet gave her a guide. She turned to YouTube and social media to watch how other people's transitions unfolded over time, and she has said this helped her cope. All the while she was nurturing a quieter skill that she had practiced since early childhood, watercolor painting.

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• 3. The Bathroom Bill

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  In 2016 Schafer became the youngest plaintiff named in Carcaño v. McCrory, a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and Lambda Legal. Its target was North Carolina's Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, widely nicknamed a bathroom bill. The law decided bathroom use by a person's sex at birth, which barred transgender people from the facilities that matched their gender identity. The lawsuit led to the law's repeal.

  Schafer did not confine her protest to the courtroom. While serving as a plaintiff she made a film opposing the bill, and the online magazine Rookie released it. In July 2016 she also wrote an essay about the law for Teen Vogue, and readers shared it widely.

  Recognition followed in 2017, when Teen Vogue placed her on its "21 Under 21" list of women and femme trailblazers younger than 21. The magazine also arranged for her to interview Hillary Clinton. She already had a plan for the grant money that came with the listing: a studio and gallery in New York for trans artists.

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• 4. Brush to Runway

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  Tim Burton and Skottie Young were the two artists who shaped the visual style Schafer developed in her teens. In high school she pointed her painting skills at clothing design, and her garments often carried political activist messages. Huffington Post profiled the designs in 2017. She also posted watercolors and photography on Instagram, where her account grew popular, and she contributed illustrations, comic art, and essays to Rookie.

  Her schooling followed the same artistic path. She attended Needham B. Broughton High School, then transferred to the North Carolina School of the Arts and graduated from its high school visual arts program. In 2017 she was a semifinalist in the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program.

  Modeling began shortly after graduation. In 2017 Schafer signed with Elite Model Management after meeting one of its agents on Instagram, and she moved to Brooklyn. She wanted to use the advantages of looking like a model to take apart assumptions about gender identity.

  Her first jobs were for Dior and Marc Jacobs. By the end of the year she had also worked for Converse, Gucci, Helmut Lang, and Versus Versace. In early 2018 she walked for nine fashion houses, including Marc Jacobs, Miu Miu, and House of Holland. That season brought her debut at New York Fashion Week and her first trip abroad, to model in Europe. Marie Claire wrote that "the fashion industry embraced Schafer for her ethereal yet edgy look and cool-kid versatility".

  She still held an acceptance to Central Saint Martins in London, where she meant to study clothing design for non-binary people. A different offer arrived before she could take that place.

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• 5. Becoming Jules

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  Her modeling agency phoned a few days after she applied to say the audition was hers. The final round took place in Los Angeles. A month later she filmed the pilot of the HBO drama Euphoria there, and then she moved to the city to shoot the first season. She was cast as Jules Vaughn, a transgender high school girl, in 2019.

  The timing was unusual. GLAAD found only 17 trans characters on television in 2017 and 2018, and trans actors in those roles were rare too. Schafer worked with the show's creator, Sam Levinson, so that Jules's trans experiences rang true. She also worked with costume designer Heidi Bivens to build Jules's wardrobe.

  Vulture praised the character for escaping the fate of most trans women on screen, who are often victims of violence. Jules stands up for herself instead of staying passive among the men around her.

  Critics praised Schafer's performance widely. Paper magazine wrote that it was hard to tell from the start that this was her acting debut. She won a Shorty Award, an MTV Movie & TV Award, and a Dorian Award for the role. The Advocate named her among the transgender actors who deserved a nomination at the 2020 Primetime Emmy Awards but did not get one. Queerty included her that year among 50 queer people it credited with leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity.

  In 2021 she co-wrote a special episode released between the first and second seasons. It follows Jules in therapy as she describes her experiences of womanhood, and critics acclaimed it. Years later, a co-star from a different film would describe the Euphoria production in far less glowing terms.

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• 6. Films and Directing

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  In 2022 Schafer lent her voice to Ruka in the English dub of the Japanese animated film Belle. That year she also made her directorial debut with the music video for Girl in Red's song hornylovesickmess. In 2023 she directed the video for Anohni and the Johnsons' song "Why Am I Alive Now?"

  The same year she played Tigris Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Her performance was praised as "excellent" and "underused". Director Francis Lawrence said he chose her for her disarming authenticity. He described her audition as "endearing and warm", the qualities he wanted for Tigris.

  Cuckoo, a 2024 horror film directed by Tilman Singer, gave Schafer her first lead role in a feature. She plays an American teenager who reluctantly visits a creepy, remote resort in Germany with her family. Schafer called the shoot scary, since it was her first project after Euphoria, and likened it to "the training wheels" coming off. Her portrayal was described as "an intense and emotional central performance".

  Co-star Dan Stevens contrasted the two productions. He said her Euphoria experience was "by all accounts, not a terribly pleasant one", while Cuckoo was "refreshing and delightful for her". He added that on Cuckoo they could shoot a difficult scene and everyone was still friends afterward. Reporting on his remarks, IndieWire pointed to earlier reports of a toxic workplace environment on the Euphoria production.

  Also in 2024 she appeared in a single scene of Yorgos Lanthimos's anthology film Kinds of Kindness. In 2025 she starred in The Hunt, a horror short directed by Nadia Lee Cohen to promote an autumn 2025 campaign by the South Korean eyewear brand Gentle Monster. In 2026 she appeared in David Lowery's drama Mother Mary.

  In 2025 a reputable leaker of Hollywood insider information reported that Schafer was first in consideration to play Princess Zelda in the live-action Legend of Zelda film. The role was later announced for Bo Bragason. The rumor drew both supportive and transphobic reactions online and in the media. Several outlets theorized that casting a cisgender woman was Nintendo's response to the backlash, but this has not been confirmed.

  Her upcoming work includes Tom Ford's drama Cry to Heaven, adapted from Anne Rice's novel, and Hideo Kojima's horror video game OD. She is also set to appear in the Amazon series Blade Runner 2099.

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• 7. Face of Fashion

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  In 2020 Schafer became the global brand ambassador for Shiseido Makeup. In 2021 Prada announced her as its new house ambassador. That same year Time named her to its Next list of 100 emerging leaders, with a tribute written by her Euphoria co-star Zendaya. In 2023 she became the new face of Mugler's Angel perfume and one of the house's ambassadors. She also kept modeling, appearing for Alexander McQueen, Prada, and Schiaparelli, among others.

  At the Vanity Fair after party for the 95th Academy Awards in 2023, she wore a white maxi skirt and a top made of a single horizontal feather on a thin strap. Ludovic de Saint Sernin designed it for the Ann Demeulemeester label. W magazine called the outfit "infamous" and said it set the Internet ablaze. Spanish pop singer Rosalía later echoed the look in a photoshoot that produced the eventual cover art of her 2025 album Lux.

  Since the press tour for Songbirds & Snakes, Schafer has been styled by Dara Allen. The two met in 2017, when both began modeling. Allen has called Schafer one of her best friends, and some observers credit part of Schafer's fashion success to their partnership.

  Schafer has attended the Met Gala in three years, 2021, 2025, and 2026. She wore Prada in two of them.

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• 8. Identity and Public Life

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  In 2016 Schafer said, "I do like people to know that I'm not a cis girl because that's not something that I am or feel like I am." By 2024 her stance had shifted. She told GQ she wanted to talk about her trans identity less, having moved past the hardest parts of her transition, and that she just wanted to "be a girl". She lamented that her identity had become the centerpiece of her career, and she began declining the many trans roles she was offered.

  She told Rolling Stone that she would not call herself a transgender activist, describing herself as simply a trans person who happens to be famous. She told Vogue she tries to avoid being seen only as the "trans starlet" while still meeting her "responsibility of representation". In her words: "All the time I'm kind of doing the math of when to reel it in and when to lean into it".

  In 2022 Schafer liked an Instagram post and commented "!!!!!" on it. The post criticized certain non-binary activists and tied their work to legislation targeting transgender rights. Some accused her of endorsing transmedicalism, which she denied. She said she only meant to call for re-evaluation of how visibility, resources, and platforms are shared between non-binary people and binary trans women within the LGBTQ+ community.

  On the 27th of February 2024, Schafer and fifty other people were arrested in New York City at a Jewish Voice for Peace protest. The demonstrators were calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza war. They gathered outside 30 Rockefeller Center to disrupt President Joe Biden's interview for Late Night with Seth Meyers, which was being taped inside.

  Her private life has drawn attention too. In 2019 she said she was "closer to what you might call a lesbian", and in 2021 she described herself as "bi or pan or something". In 2019 she was in a five-month relationship with Rosalía, which she confirmed in 2024, and she calls the singer "family no matter what". She dated her Euphoria co-star Dominic Fike from February 2022 until about July 2023.

  In February 2025 Schafer posted a TikTok video criticizing the Trump administration and the U.S. Department of State. She said the State Department had changed her passport gender marker from female to male without her consent or knowledge. The next day she explained that it was "important to just keep track of where things are in our country". Marcy Rheintgen, believed to be the first person arrested under Florida's anti-trans bathroom law, calls Schafer a personal hero. Rheintgen says Schafer inspired her to challenge that law after the male passport was issued.

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