The marketing for The Weeknd’s and Sam Levinson’s upcoming HBO series The Idol continues to insist that it’s a dark and depraved Hollywood nightmare, but beyond seeing part of a butt, ominously bass-heavy music, and Hank Azaria dramatically lowering his stylish sunglasses, we still don’t quite see it. That’s probably by design, since the show is going out of its way to be very mysterious and its assuming that viewers will be more interested in its impressive cast than any plot details (or in seeing the entirety of a butt), but at some point does HBO have to say more than “check out this slimy and sexy trash from Abel ‘The Weeknd’ Tesfaye and Sam ‘The Euphoria’ Levinson” to get people to tune in?
Probably not, to be honest. We’re still talking about it, aren’t we? Anyway, Variety says The Weeknd debuted this new teaser during a concert last night, and we can’t imagine how fucking wild the crowd went for Hank Azaria’s debut. Everybody screaming “Holy shit, that’s Professor Frink!” so loud that they can’t even hear The Weeknd doing “Blinding Lights.”
In addition to Azaria, the trailer also showcases Dan Levy, Jane Adams, Hari Nef, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Mike Dean, Ramsey, Moses Sumney, Jennie Ruby Jane (a.k.a. Jennie Kim from Blackpink), Troye Sivan, Suzanna Son, and (of course) main stars Lily-Rose Depp and The Weeknd. Amy Seimetz was originally supposed to direct every episode but left after some sort of change in the “creative direction” of the show—which also might tie in to the fact that we can’t discern much about the plot.
The show was initially pitched as the story of an up-and-coming pop star falling in with a self-help guru who secretly runs a cult, but we haven’t seen much explicitly cultish stuff in these trailers… and we also haven’t seen anything that really contradicts that, either, so we don’t know what these behind-the-scenes changes are all about. We’ll have a better idea when The Idol premieres, which this trailer promises is “soon.”