“Cool” is one of those nebulous descriptors that defies classification. A cool girl could be anyone from an irreverent teen ditching class under the bleachers to a popular trend-setter rocking the latest style, a tik tok master with millions of followers or – like Gillian Flynn’s Amy Dunne – a woman consumed with attracting a man. This ever-evolving status can be difficult to pin down, but we all know a cool girl when we see her. Hunter Schafer is that girl; a celebrated actress currently reinventing the idea of “cool” for a new generation. With her latest role in Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo, Schafer brings this edgy energy to another classic female archetype. In her first starring role, Schafer takes on the final girl trope and embodies the female empowerment of legendary heroines while maintaining her own effortless allure. With an electric performance in this uniquely terrifying film, Schafer breaks the final girl mold to create a new vision of modern horror survival.
Despite her rapid success and innate talent, Schafer never planned on becoming an actress. The North Carolina native began studying visual art at a young age and contributed sketches and essays to the virtual teen magazine Rookie. Schafer stepped into the national spotlight as the youngest plaintiff in the ACLU’s lawsuit filed against North Carolina’s H.B. 2. Arguing that transgender students should be allowed to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity, Schafer honed her public speaking skills and provided a relatable face to the experiences of teens and children suffering under this harmful legislation. Making activism look cool, Schafer also made a film protesting the bill which caught the attention of Teen Vogue editors. As one of the magazine’s “21 Under 21,” the idealistic young woman contributed an essay to the international mag and sat down for an interview with Hillary Clinton.
With an innate and generally flawless sense of boundary-pushing style, Schafer planned to study non-binary fashion at London’s prestigious Central Saint Martins when she was offered a contract with Elite Model Management in New York, NY. Believing that a career in modeling would help redefine beauty standards for the LGBTQ+ community, Schafer put off college indefinitely. She quickly began walking for high-end fashion houses like Dior, Gucci, and Helmet Lang while signing brand ambassador deals with Prada and Shiseido Makeup. Not content to simply perform, Schafer tried her hand behind the camera and directed music videos for girl in red’s “Hornylovesickmess” and ANOHNI and the Johnsons’ “Why Am I Alive Now?”
While repping high-end brands, Schafer responded to an Instagram casting call for trans femme actresses and landed the role that would catapult her to stardom. On Max’s ground-breaking series, Euphoria, Schafer stars opposite Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, and Jacob Elordi as Jules, a transgender student navigating a shockingly mature high school scene. With no formal acting experience, Schafer’s fresh-faced appeal and undeniable talent allowed disparate audiences to connect with a sensitive young trans girl and helped to expand our collective understanding of gender expression.
As if this authenticity and empowerment weren’t cool enough, Schafer has insisted on having a seat at the table. Though Euphoria is told from the perspective of Rue (Zendaya), Schafer worked with creator Sam Levinson to pen the Jules-centric episode “Fuck Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob” which bridges the gap between seasons one and two. With the only co-writing credit on the award-winning show, Schafer pulled from her own lived experience to inform Jules’s story, adding authenticity to a character that has revolutionized TV.
Schafer would continue to work in the horror-adjacent world by voicing Suzu in the English-language version of Mamoru Hosoda’s Belle, an anime adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. This shy and dejected Japanese teen finds new meaning in life and rediscovers her voice through a virtual platform called U. While exploring her newfound pop star fame, Suzu befriends a mysterious user known only as the Dragon (Paul Castro Jr.) and the two find connection in exploring the reality behind virtual ideals. Schafer would follow this celebrated role by appearing in the blockbuster prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. As Tigris Snow, a progressive stylist for early Hunger Games events, Tigris uses her unique artistry to support the rebellion, a natural fit for the civic-minded fashionista.
Schafer steps into the world of overt horror with a leading role in Singer’s Euro-horror shocker Cuckoo. Her enigmatic Gretchen is still reeling from her mother’s death when she moves with her father’s family to a mountain resort in the Bavarian Alps. While adjusting to this dramatic new environment, she takes a job at the resort’s front desk under the management of eccentric German developer Herr König (Dan Stevens). But all is not peaceful at this quiet retreat. Herr König forbids her from working after dark and has a habit of playing mysterious bird calls on the edges of the woods. Stalked by a mysterious woman with a hideous scream, Gretchen must uncover the secret of this sinister compound to avoid becoming a pawn in Herr König’s deadly experiment.
‘Cuckoo’
Though Singer’s film is more closely aligned with creature features and psychological horror, its central character feels pulled from the slasher tradition. Like Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell, Scream), Gretchen struggles to grieve for her mother in a world that expects her to just move on. When she notices a threat lurking in the shadows outside, she’s mocked and dismissed like Laurie Strode (Jaime Lee Curtis, Halloween). After surviving a brutal attack, she emerges from the hospital covered in bandages, evoking Laurie’s terrifying trials in Halloween II. Like Rachel Carruthers (Ellie Cornell, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers), she serves as a protector to her half-sister Alma (Mila Lieu), a young girl who may be able to unlock the resort’s horrific secret. Like Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), she encounters a murderous force of nature in the unfamiliar woods, and like Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp, A Nightmare on Elm Street), she devises a plan to ensure her survival.
In addition to this spiritual inspiration, Gretchen’s story feels indebted to Alice (Adrienne King) of Friday the 13th fame. Forty-four years after the Camp Crystal Lake massacre, Gretchen also finds herself alone in the woods, watched by a woman with sinister intentions. Heading back to her cabin after work, she bikes through the dark as a figure in white approaches on foot. Singer uses the natural environment and summer camp feel to heighten the tension as a shadowy hand inches ever closer to Gretchen’s shoulder. Singer nods to these iconic characters, but it’s Schafer’s fantastic performance that cements the connection. In a multi-layered performance, she embodies the strength and fortitude of previous final girls while creating a character all her own. Despite these similarities, Gretchen is far from the virginal ingénue described in Carol J. Clover’s Men, Women, and Chain Saws. This foul-mouthed trouble-maker falls asleep on the job, ignores her father, jams out on her bass, and ditches work to make out with girls. She’s a unique, but relatable heroine providing a new template for what it means to survive.
Now that she’s conquered this legendary element of horror lore, Schafer has no plans of slowing down. Future projects include Amazon’s upcoming Blade Runner 2099 and a starring role in Jordan Peele’s new horror video game OD while a small, but memorable role in Yorgos Lanthimos’s Kinds of Kindness adds prestige collaboration to her expanding resume. She’ll also reprise her role as Jules in the highly anticipated third season of Euphoria reportedly premiering in 2025. Though her calendar is full, the multi-talented phenom takes it all in stride. She continues to push the envelope and defy classification by steadfastly refusing to be anything but herself. As she merges the concepts of cool girl and final girl, Hunter Schafer has become the fresh, new face of gen z horror.
Cuckoo, starring Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens, is now playing in theaters. Get tickets now!
In Cuckoo: “Reluctantly, 17-year-old Gretchen leaves her American home to live with her father, who has just moved into a resort in the German Alps with his new family. Arriving at their future residence, they are greeted by Mr. König, her father’s boss, who takes an inexplicable interest in Gretchen’s mute half-sister Alma. Something doesn’t seem right in this tranquil vacation paradise. Gretchen is plagued by strange noises and bloody visions until she discovers a shocking secret that also concerns her own family.”
Our own Meagan Navarro wrote in her review out of SXSW, “There’s inventive worldbuilding on display that sets this high-concept horror movie apart and a few intense horror cat-and-mouse scenes that deliver palpable tension. But Singer approaches it with a playful sense of humor that only further nudges Cuckoo into the realm of weird cinema. It’s so refreshingly unconventional and unpredictable in every way, right down to its raucous, entertainingly silly finale, that it’s hard to care about all of the plot that gets discarded along the way.”
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