Name: Chloe Cherry

Age: 25

Hometown: Lancaster, Pa.

Now Lives: In a two-bedroom apartment in Hollywood with a roommate.

Claim to Fame: An acting novice who made her TV debut in Season 2 of “Euphoria,” Ms. Cherry played Faye, a wide-eyed, pouty-lipped girlfriend of a drug dealer who can’t seem to escape heroin and violence. “When I got the part, I still wasn’t sure if I had that great of an acting ability,” Ms. Cherry said. Her confidence grew when the show’s creator, Sam Levinson, “kept rewriting things,” she said, so that her character had more screen time. “I’m still so shocked by how big the response has been,” she said.

Big Break: Her life story is as heretical as any “Euphoria” plotline. In 2015, days after turning 18, she fled small-town Pennsylvania for Miami to become a porn star. “I was obsessed with the adult industry,” she said. “I looked up how to properly run away and learned that if you’re legally an adult and you leave a note, they can’t report you missing.” After signing with a talent agency, she moved to Los Angeles, where she stood out in the pornography industry for making wacky Instagram stories.

Mr. Levinson, it turns out, was an avid follower of her Instagram and in 2019 reached out through a casting agent. At first, Ms. Cherry thought it was a scam. “I was like, ‘No thanks, this seems fake,’” she said. But she eventually auditioned and won the producers over. After filming the season, she decided to retire from pornography and pivot to mainstream acting. “My whole adult life I’ve been doing something that people have opinions on,” she said.

Latest Project Her breakout role in “Euphoria” has opened other creative outlets. This spring, she modeled in a campy ad campaign for Versace and Ssense in which she wrestled with a purse-snatching robot, and will appear in Steve Madden ads this fall. She is also creating art (her collages were featured in a Los Angeles art show in March) and hip-hop (she has posted three tracks on SoundCloud).

Next Thing Her acting career has taken off. Ms. Cherry was recently cast in “www.RachelOrmont.com,” a science-fiction drama that stars Dasha Nekrasova. She also signed onto “Tuna Melt Film,” a dark hit man comedy co-starring Sza and Eddie Huang. “Imagine if ‘Good Times’ was about hot women,” is how Ms. Cherry described the film.

Changing Industries What’s the biggest difference between Hollywood and the pornography industry? “For some reason, people will pay for Hollywood stuff, but they won’t pay for porn,” Ms. Cherry said. Another difference? “I used to be obsessed with what my body looked like, but I don’t feel that way anymore,” she said.