As his debut feature bows in theaters and to largely negative reviews by critics, The Weeknd (née Abel Tesfaye) is admitting he understands the lampooning of HBO’s The Idol, the spiritual forbearer to the Trey Edward Shults-helmed Hurry Up Tomorrow that also explores musical mythologizing.
In a new profile by The Guardian, Tesfaye acknowledged that critics’ takes on The Idol “makes a lot of sense.” (A Rolling Stone exposé predated the drama’s release, featuring anonymous interviews that reported discord on set amid costly reshoots as the show’s creative team was overhauled near the conclusion of production; the piece also detailed allegations that the show took on a misogynistic lens to replace the “female perspective” previously at the core of the series, resulting in “sexual torture porn,” as one source said.)
Tesfaye maintained that issues plagued the series long before Euphoria creator Sam Levinson took over as director following Amy Seimetz’s exit: “Pandemic happened, theaters are not a thing any more at the time, television is the new god.” While the project was then meant to be a miniseries, it ballooned to a five-parter, with Tesfaye adding, “It could have been great if it had a beginning, middle and end. It just ended on middle.”
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He continued, “The best films have as much of a singular voice as possible, and everybody working on it cares about it just as much as the director and the actors.”
When asked if people didn’t feel that way on The Idol, The Weeknd clarified, “No. People cared about it, for sure. But I think it got to a point where everyone was trying to get to the finish line. You can’t force something, you’ve just got to let it be whatever it is, even if it’s half-baked.”
Although Tesfaye starred in, co-produced and co-wrote The Idol, he stated he didn’t want to control the creative environment too much out of fear of being labeled hard to work alongside: “Then I become ‘difficult’, and the worst thing you can be called in Hollywood is difficult. ‘Difficult’ spreads!” He said he felt this was especially true when starting out as an actor, adding, “You’ve got to pay your dues. But boy, did I pay my dues.”
Concluding, he said, “I think our instincts are that – it’s God speaking to us: ‘This isn’t right.’ When you go against your instincts, it can be blasphemous. Seriously! And you pay for it. With Idol, our instincts were ‘This isn’t right,’ but we wanted it to work … Too many cooks in the kitchen.”
The Idol, starring Lily-Rose Depp as a troubled pop star sucked into the world of the cultish nightclub promoter Tedros (Tesfaye), was canceled by HBO after a season due to poor critical and commercial performance.
Meanwhile, Hurry Up Tomorrow, starring Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan, follows a musician (Tesfaye) plagued by insomnia, who “is pulled into an odyssey with a stranger who begins to unravel the very core of his existence,” per the pic’s logline. The script, loosely inspired by the four-time Grammy winner’s experiences, was co-written by Shults, Tesfaye and The Idol‘s Reza Fahim.