CANNES, France — The cast and creators of HBO's upcoming series "The Idol" used its Cannes Film Festival premiere to push back against rumors of a chaotic set and a Rolling Stone article that characterized the narrative as "torture porn" and a "rape fantasy" rooted in toxic masculinity.
"When my wife read me the article," said Sam Levinson, the show's co-creator and director, "I looked at her and said, 'I think we're about to have the biggest show of the summer.'"
"We know we're making a show that's provocative," he told journalists the day after the series premiered in Cannes' Grand Lumiere Theater on Monday night. "What was in [the article] felt completely foreign to me, but I know who I am. There's two jobs in this business, there's the work and there's the managing of the persona, and managing the persona is not interesting to me because it takes away time and energy from the work."
