In the first episode of Euphoria, Zendaya’s Rue introduces Fezco O’Neill as someone who is “not normally revolving in the same direction as planet Earth.” He’s a walking contradiction—both dealing the drugs to which Rue is addicted and pleading with her to stop taking them. But across two seasons of the Emmy-winning HBO drama, it became clear that pills weren’t the only thing drawing Rue back into Fezco’s orbit.

That was due to the striking performance of Angus Cloud, who died this week at age 25. “As an artist, a friend, a brother, and a son, Angus was special to all of us in so many ways,” his family said in a statement. “Last week he buried his father and intensely struggled with this loss. The only comfort we have is knowing Angus is now reunited with his dad, who was his best friend. Angus was open about his battle with mental health, and we hope that his passing can be a reminder to others that they are not alone and should not fight this on their own in silence.”

Euphoria found Cloud almost by accident. A casting director discovered him on the street in Manhattan, plucking Cloud out of his job as a waiter and putting him into the trickiest role on a major series. “There was no one quite like Angus,” Euphoria creator Sam Levinson said in a statement. “He was too special, too talented, and way too young to leave us so soon. He also struggled, like many of us, with addiction and depression. I hope he knew how many hearts he touched. I loved him. I always will.”

Despite Cloud’s rising star, he had no desire to be famous—and said as much in a 2022 podcast appearance. “I want to be a regular person and have regular interactions with people. And something about fame and notoriety, you lose that,” he explained. Cloud’s actions bore that philosophy out. When directed to give out Fezco’s phone number in a scene, Cloud freely recited his actual number, as shown in a season two blooper reel. He told Rolling Stone that the first time he was recognized by a fan, they asked, “Hey, are you from Euphoria?” Cloud responded, “No, I’m from Oakland. But I was in the show, yeah.”

To hear Cloud tell it, he wasn’t meant to be on the series for long. “Apparently, he was supposed to die in the first couple of episodes,” the actor told The Hollywood Reporter of his character. Fezco not only survived, but also became an irresistible force even among a stacked cast. He got a much-needed showcase in season two’s premiere, “Trying to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door.” The episode explained how Fezco’s iron-willed grandmother (Kathrine Narducci) rescued him from an abusive father, but also indoctrinated him into the world of drug dealing. Those old childhood wounds lived on through Fezco’s freckled face, behind Cloud’s piercing blue eyes, in a scar tracing the left side of his scalp.

How beautiful it was, then, to see Fezco unburdened in his scenes with Maude Apatow’s Lexi. “He’s so thoughtful and curious, and he’s such a great listener,” Apatow told me last year, speaking about working with Cloud. “That is rare sometimes, just to have someone who is really right there with you.” After Fezco and Lexi meet cute at a seedy New Year’s Eve party–two teens content to be wallflowers at the orgy—tentative romance ensues. They hold hands as they watch the movie Stand by Me, tearfully singing during the end credits. She confides in him about her upcoming play. He daydreams about growing up to be a farmer, “some Little House on the Prairie shit.” For a few fleeting moments, Fezco considers the possibility that he might actually get to be happy.

But the dark reality Fezco was born into seeps back in during a bullet-riddled season two finale, in which his character’s adopted younger brother, Ashtray (Javon “Wanna” Walton), meets a tragic fate. Cloud relied on Levinson to extract the emotion needed for his performance. “What he said to me, it just cut deep. It brought up a lot of everything I’ve been through. I don’t know how he knew how to touch my buttons like that,” the actor told Vulture about filming that sequence. “He just told me, ‘Bro, you’re here. You’re doing good work.’ And since he knows about a lot of the personal stuff I’ve had to deal with, he was just like, ‘You know how easy it would be for you not to be here. But you’re here and you’re doing it.’”

For those who didn’t know Cloud personally, his legacy will lie in the raw, soulful energy he brought to Fezco—a character who lived in the space between adolescence and adulthood, amidst good intentions and hard choices, haunted by a future that could never be. As the world mourns Cloud, a bit of Fezco’s dialogue rings painfully true: “Where’d you go?” he asks Lexi upon their first meeting. “I was startin’ to miss you.”