Euphoria Creator Ron Leshem & Hagar Ben-Asher Interview: Bad Boy

At this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, the mind behind the Israeli series that inspired HBO’s Euphoria, screenwriter Ron Leshem, visited Collider’s studio at the Cinema Center by MARBL to talk with Editor-in-chief Steve Weintraub about co-creating his latest series Bad Boy. Leshem joins series director and co-creator Hagar Ben-Asher to discuss bringing this true story to life and the creative liberties inspired by the man himself.

Sharp-witted Dean (played by Guy Menaster) puts up a cool front. Typically he’s unfazed by authority, but when correctional officers burst through his bedroom door and haul him off to a juvenile center, his life is forever changed. Taken from his mother’s home in the middle of the night exposes Dean’s vulnerabilities, especially within the walls of the detention center. While being shown his new living quarters, Dean notices a boy, Zoro (Havtamo Farda), in solitary confinement and is told the young man is psychotic, a killer. On his first morning, when Dean wakes to a nightmare, he’s thrown into solitary confinement himself, and the two boys’ lives become intertwined. Years later, Dean (Daniel Chen) is an established comedian, but his past still has the power to undo his present.

The duo discusses working with the real-life inspiration behind Bad Boy, Daniel Chen, who plays himself in the time jumps, to most accurately depict the childhood trauma while maintaining his “explosive imagination and humor.” They talk about how this series was what the original Euphoria was meant to be, why studios weren’t ready for it, whether we’ll be getting a Season 2 for Bad Boy, and why they wanted to film in Hebrew.

#RonLeshem #HagarBenAsher #BadBoy

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