Lily-Rose Depp addressed claims her character in the upcoming HBO series, The Idol, was based on Britney Spears.
The 23-year-old plays Jocelyn, a pop star who is attempting to reclaim her career after suffering a nervous breakdown, which has led some to compare the fictional character to Spears, 41.
And now the daughter of Johnny Depp has clarified that the Oops!…I Did It Again singer didn’t inspire her role.
“No, it’s not based on anyone in particular… We’re definitely not trying to tell anyone else’s story, but definitely create one of our own,” she told Extra. “This is a fictional character and fictional story.”
As for who did inspired her portrayal, Depp said she drew inspiration from many people including Gene Tierney and Sharon Stone.
She continued: “There were a lot of different people that I was inspired by for this role. Some that were pop stars, some that were not.
“I wanted Jocelyn to feel simultaneously like a modern-day pop queen of today but also like somebody that kind of existed in her own world and in her own kind of time, so I drew a lot of inspiration from actresses like… Gene Tierney and Sharon Stone and women like that that I find really inspiring.”
The series has come under fire from critics who have deemed it “too graphic” since its premiere at Cannes earlier this month.
Despite the backlash, Depp defended the show and insisted that the raunchy nature added to her character’s “rawness.”
She concluded: “I think the daringness of all of the scenes was something that added to the character’s rawness. Also, to my desire to go there and explore the character to the best I could.”
Back in March, Rolling Stone reported that director Amy Seimetz left the project after Levinson had ramped up the show’s nudity, sex and violence to “disturbing” levels.
One of the 11 crew members the outlet spoke to said: “It was like any rape fantasy that any toxic man would have in the show — and then the woman comes back for more because it makes her music better”.
Two months on the show’s creator Sam Levinson defended its gratuitous nudity during a news conference in Cannes last week.
He said: “We live in a very sexualised world, especially in the States, and I think the influence of pornography is really strong in terms of the psyche of, I think, young people in the States.
“We see this in pop music and how it sort of reflects the underbelly of the internet. I think it’s very true to what almost every pop star doing these days.”
