Choreographer Ryan Heffington on that 'Euphoria' Number – 'Super Homoerotic to the Nth Degree'

The first act of "Our Life," Lexi Howard's meta-play that was seen on Episode 7 of "Euphoria," ended with a burst of homoerotica. It came with a slickly staged musical number to Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out for a Hero," and featured a cast of buff, young, shirtless, and gold-spandexed dancers appearing to have a choreographed gay gang-bang in a locker room. Observing it with a look of disdain both on stage and off is Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi). On stage he is danced with oversized zeal by Austin Abrams (who plays Ethan on the show) while Elordi steams in the audience before bolting out of the theater.

When choreographer Ryan Heffington was asked to do the number, he told Variety, he found inspiration from the Tyler song. "I knew it was – and had to be – larger than life."

Heffington, whose choreography can be seen in the current musical "Tick, Tick ... Boom!," recalls seeing the script by series show runner Sam Levinson and that it called for�"tons of baby oil and rubbing and massaging," and "would be super homoerotic to the nth degree."

"Heffington says Levinson 'wanted David Bowie to look straight' in comparison to the dance," adds Variety. "So that was a really good launching point of where I should go with this piece."

From there, Heffington and his assistant, Ryan Spencer, looked to biology, specifically the volatile hormones in the young men. "It's based in the psyche of a teenager, so I wanted it to have this definite humor foundation to it. In high school, boys are all about ejaculation and the senses being sexual 24 hours a day, so I wanted to get as much of that into this piece as possible," Heffington says. "It was just an ode to us boys in high school. There's a lot of flexing, and it's campy. When you think of high school plays, they're a little campy sometimes. That's why we love them. So I wanted to honor that as well – that it's not a professional production, even though the budget was way over the top."

What was important was authenticity, not only in the appearance of the dancers, but also with their comfort level with the raunchy routine. "I wanted people that would have fun with this piece and not have it weigh on their psyches, you know, that it was super homo – that we could celebrate homoeroticism and make it tongue-in-cheek," Heffington says of casting."

He also praised Abrams. "It was complicated choreography that moved really fast, and I think once Austin could see that we trusted him and his choices as well, he blossomed as a dancer. We worked really hard on the movements that were challenging for him, and he brought it. He was never fearful, and that's the best type of actor to work with."

With only five days to put together the number, Heffington was relieved when Levenson saw it and said, "You're a fucking genius."

"In true camp fashion, the piece ends with two medicine balls and a punching bag coming together to form a penis, which then ejaculates streamers," Variety recounts.

Of the finishing moment, Heffington says: "It was just like, this is why this whole piece is happening – based on this lower chakra, grunt, caveman-type existence as a teenager. So let's just pay tribute to the peen."