Almost two years later, the consensus on The Idol is still that it’s a mess. Despite boasting an overall impressive cast, the Sam Levinson and Abel Tesfaye (also known as The Weeknd) production was problematic and the product was largely dismissed by both critics and fans, with Tesfaye shouldering much of the blame. However, he is not giving up on his acting aspirations yet; this spring, his film Hurry Up Tomorrowwill open in theaters, and it sounds like Tesfaye took some lessons from his Idol misfire.
Namely, Tesfaye wanted to just focus on one part of the process for Hurry Up Tomorrow instead of trying to run an entire film. “I wanted to do my job as an actor,” he says in a recent interview with The Fader. “So make my piece with the idea, with the script, give whatever notes I have to give, but essentially it being his [director Trey Edward Shults’] film, where I give him the material, he makes the movie he wants to make, and I get to just focus on being an actor and not give a fuck about what’s going on behind the scenes.”
Tesfaye described Shults’ directing style as cat-like, explaining that the director “really doesn’t want to get in the way of whatever is happening in front of the camera and it was a smoother process.” The musician goes on, “I got to just focus on performing and doing what I do in front of the camera and stay in it, just stay in in the role,” which genuinely sounds like a good move for a performer with limited acting experience, and especially one acting opposite celebrated new stars Barry Keoghan and Jenna Ortega. In the Fader clip, Tesfaye also jokes about how he knows pretty much no one liked The Idol, so it does seem like he’s moving forward from the experience with some humility.
