One of the most talked-about titles at this year’s Cannes Film Festival isn’t a movie, it’s a TV show. “The Idol,” a scandalous, sexy, and no doubt polarizing series (think “Euphoria,” but in the world of pop music) about the price of fame, premiered at the festival with two of its first five episodes. inspired a thousand hot-takes about all that on-screen nudity, bodily fluids, and Hollywood sycophants.
But before “The Idol” — the brainchild of “Euphoria” creator Sam Levinson and Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye — even made its way to the Croisette, an explosive report from Rolling Stone details the on-set turmoil, including allegations of a toxic work environment, last minute script rewrites and runaway budgets.
At a press conference on Tuesday, the day after the premiere, Levinson responded directly to the allegations, denying the behind-the-scenes drama. “When my wife read me the article,” he recalls, “I looked at her and said, ‘I think we’re about to have the biggest show of the summer.'”
He continued, “We know we’re making a show that’s provocative. We have not missed it.” But regarding the allegations in the article, he says, “it felt completely foreign to me. My only quibble is that they deliberately left out anything that didn’t fit their story. We’ve seen that a lot lately.”
Tesfaye said earlier in the press conference that he and Levinson aspired to “create something special, something fun, to make people laugh, to piss some people off.”
The show’s star, Lily-Rose Depp, also countered the mayhem allegations and stood by Levinson, saying: “It’s always a little sad and disheartening to say mean false things about someone you care about. It was not at all reflective of my experience.
“The Idol” spotlights Depp, who plays Jocelyn, a pop phenom emerging from a psychotic break following the death of her mother. While trying to get a new album and tour off the ground, she heads to a seedy Hollywood club to blow off some steam. There she meets The Weeknd’s Tedros, a modern-day cult leader who reveals greater ambitions for Jocelyn’s career and his bottom line.
“I wanted to make a dark, twisted fantasy about the music industry,” said Tesfaye. “To take everything I know about it and raise it.”
Clearly no stranger to provocation, Levinson also defended the show’s “revolutionary” use of nudity. A funny scene in the pilot even evokes the need for intimacy coordinators, which became more common in the entertainment industry in the wake of #MeToo.
“We live in a very sexualized world. Especially in the United States, the influence of pornography is strong in the psyche of young people. We see this in pop music,” he said. “When you have a character with a strong sense of self and a strong sexual self, you end up underestimating her.”
Depp calls Jocelyn a “born and bred artist”, meaning nudity is important to the character’s genesis. “That extends to every aspect of her life, not just her professional life,” she said. The way she dresses is trying to tell you something all the time. The character’s occasional nudity physically mirrors the nudity we see emotionally.”
Hank Azaria, who plays Jocelyn’s manager Chaim, jokes that he went to protect Depp when she was scantily clad on set. “I tried to throw blankets over her,” he said.
“The Idol” in the pilot episode refers to the media’s intense focus on music icons such as Britney Spears. However, Levinson denies that Jocelyn was inspired by Spears, whom he calls “one of the greatest pop stars of all time.”
“We’re not trying to tell a story about a particular pop star,” he said. “We’re looking more at how the world perceives pop stars and the pressure that puts on that individual.”
Depp believes the great tragedy about the price of fame is that everyday people think they know more about celebrities than they actually do. “Something that was interesting about exploring the character is, what’s going on in her head? Someone who is looked at but not seen… What does it look like when she unravels?”
Depp may play someone still figuring it all out, but Tesfaye portrays a man on a mission. Tesfaye describes his character as “Dracula”, who “lures” Jocelyn into his job. He laughed when asked by a journalist if he had ever met someone like Tedros in real life. “I don’t fucking think so.”
Levinson agreed, “If you had, I don’t think you would be here.”