A new trailer for The Idol, HBO’s upcoming drama about an aspiring pop star’s tricky road to superstardom in LA, dropped yesterday, and by the looks of the two minute clip, the new series is going to be one wild ride.
Lily-Rose Depp stars as Jocelyn, the vulnerable, fame-hungry young woman at the centre of the high-drama story, while Abel Tesfaye, who is best known by his stage name, The Weeknd, stars as the dangerous Tedros, her love interest.
Britney Spears’ Gimme More blasts over the super-charged trailer, which flashes from club sequences, to scenes of drug-taking, to conversations by a glitzy mansion pool, to car rides in open top Cadillacs, to dancing, to grinding, to Jocelyn singing on stage. Under red lights Tedros says to her, “You should be having way more fun.”
“I like you,” she purrs back. And so it all begins.
The six-part series is from HBO and super-studio A24, and, as HBO put it, “from the sick and twisted minds of Sam Levinson and Abel ‘The Weeknd’ Tesfaye,” so of course it’s going to be a full on, no holds barred production. And we can’t wait.
Here’s everything to know about the upcoming show.
When is the show launching in the UK?
The Idol doesn’t currently have a UK set release date, but Sky announced yesterday that the series will be released on Sky and NOW sometime in June. We’ll update our piece as soon as we know the exact date.
Who’s in the cast?
Joining Depp and Tesfaye on screen is Jennie Ruby Jane, of the massive South Korean supergroup BLACKPINK, who plays Angel, one of Jocelyn’s LA friends.
Anne Heche, in her final television role, also stars in the series, as does Australian singer-songwriter Troye Sivan, Ghanaian-American musician Moses Sumney, Schitt’s Creek favourite Dan Levy, actor and director Eli Roth, and Shiva Baby star Rachel Sennott.
Hari Nef (Extrapolations), Suzanna Son (Red Rocket), Jane Adams (Hung), Mike Dean (the legendary hip hop producer) and Hank Azaria (the voice of many of The Simpsons’ characters) also star. Basically, it’s almost as jam-packed as a Quentin Tarantino or Wes Anderson movie.
Who is the team behind it?
The Idol, which was ordered by HBO in November 2021, is very much Tesfaye’s baby: he is the show’s co-creator (along with entrepreneur-turned-writer Reza Fahim and director Sam Levinson) and is an executive producer as well as a co-writer and the star of the series.
Actor and filmmaker Amy Seimetz, who co-directed the TV series The Girlfriend Experience, was initially onboard as the director. But, according to a report released by Rolling Stone on March 1, she was only involved with the project up until April 2022, when “roughly 80 percent of the six-episode series” had been finished.
“With Seimetz out of the picture, HBO handed the reins to Levinson,” explained Rolling Stone in the article. But, a Deadline article published on June 29, 2021, said that HBO was developing The Idol, and that the drama series would be from Levinson – showing that Levinson was on board the project (though it’s difficult to tell in what capacity) much earlier than April 2022.
Levinson is best known for creating HBO’s blockbuster teen TV series, Euphoria, but he also co-wrote the 2022 thriller Deep Water, and directed and wrote the 2021 romantic drama Malcolm & Marie (which starred Zendaya and John David Washington).
Award-winning American writer Joseph Epstein, who famously wrote that Wall Street Journal opinion piece about Jill Biden and her use of the prefix “Dr.” is also a writer on The Idol, alongside Mary Laws, who wrote the 2016 film The Neon Demon, and who helmed the writing of some episodes of Succession.
A24, the studio behind highly-acclaimed productions Euphoria, the Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Whale, Aftersun and The Souvenir is the show’s producer.
It’s premiering at Cannes
Last week it was confirmed that The Idol will premiere out of competition at Cannes this year. It’s currently unclear how many episodes of the TV series will be shown at the French film festival.
What has Depp said about acting in the series?
Speaking to i-D magazine, 23-year-old Depp said: “I’ve dreamt of roles like this for forever. I just don’t think that you could give an actress a greater gift than a role like this.
“This has been the most meaningful and important project that I’ve ever done, and the thing that I’m the proudest of. I don’t know where to begin. Jocelyn is the most wonderfully complex character. She’s so fascinating. A mystery. After a year of living with that character, I’m still obsessed with her. I just want to keep digging deeper.”
What’s the Rolling Stone controversy?
.@RollingStone did we upset you? pic.twitter.com/Uyx06lyRgx
— The Weeknd (@theweeknd) March 1, 2023
At the beginning of March, Rolling Stone released a blazing report which revealed that thirteen sources had told the magazine that behind the scenes, the making of the show had been a major catastrophe.
Some of the sources Rolling Stones spoke to were unhappy with the direction that Levinson had taken when he was brought on board as director late into the production when, the magazine said, 80 per cent of the $54-75 million project had already been completed.
Comments from anonymous producers in the article included, “What I signed up for was a dark satire of fame and the fame model in the 21st century... [but] It went from satire to the thing it was satirizing.”
Levinson and Tesfaye didn’t respond to Rolling Stone about the allegations, but the same day the article was published, 33-year-old Tesfaye Tweeted “.@RollingStone did we upset you?”
In a statement Depp said: “Sam is, for so many reasons, the best director I have ever worked with. Never have I felt more supported or respected in a creative space, my input and opinions more valued.”
Another source from production reinforced Depp’s comments, saying to Rolling Stone, “It couldn’t have been a better crew from my standpoint, from both Amy and in Sam’s case across the board. [They are] completely professional people, thinking ahead, people problem solving on a dime, being collaborators and caring. There just was an overall caring from both the cast and the crew deeply on both sets.”
