If you found yourself suppressing a laugh, angry yell or covering your eyes from embarrassment during the sex scenes in the second episode of The Weeknd‘s HBO music drama The Idol over the weekend, then the series’ co-creator and co-star is fine with all of that.
“No. There’s nothing sexy about it,” Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd’s real name, which he now goes by), told GQ in a new interview about the mixed reaction to his long-in-the-works erotic music industry critique in which Lily-Rose Depp’s fallen pop star Jocelyn falls for creepy sex cult leader Tedros Tedros (Tesfaye).
The scene in question makes up the final 10 minutes of the most recent episode, in which Tedros put Jocelyn through her male gaze sex paces, ordering the blindfolded singer to strike a series of provocative poses while reciting cringey dialogue that sounds too obvious for even an actual adult film. “Let me see those t—es,” Tesfaye leers at one point in the character’s dead-eyed, deadpan voice as another member of his cult spies on them from a closet.
The GQ writer mentions that the scene comes after Jocelyn and her assistant watch the Sharon Stone 1992 erotic thriller Basic Instinct, whose influence seems to be all over the show. “When we use Basic Instinct as a reference, we’re using [director Paul ] Verhoeven. Verhoeven is the king of ‘90s satire thriller — yes, there’s moments of ‘sexy’ in his films but there are other moments that are very cheesy and hilarious,” Tesfaye said. “How ever you’re feeling watching that scene, whether it’s discomfort, or you feel gross, or you feel embarrassed for the characters. It’s all those emotions adding up to: This guy is in way over his head, this situation is one where he is not supposed to be here.”
As for the wince-y bedroom talk, when it’s suggested the oily, rattail-wearing Tedros is freestyling it, Tesfaye said, “exactly,” noting that the tone the team is trying to strike is a blend of camp, satire and some more straightforward seriousness to keep viewer’s off-balance.
“With this show, we love to play with the emotions. We’re puppet-mastering your feelings through the show,” he said of what appears to be a determination to keep the audience uncomfortable, a bit confused and unsure if the dialogue and scenarios are meant to be taken seriously or not. “It’s never a consistent tone, and that’s on purpose. No matter how dark a scene is, you can find the comedy in it. That’s why we love actors like [co-stars] Rachel Sennot, Hank Azaria, and Da’Vine [Joy Randolph]. These are incredibly talented comedic performers who can shift the tone in just one monologue.”
“We love to play with the comedy of it but then it’s like… don’t get too comfortable,” Tesfaye added of the show that has already featured a number of choking-related sex scenes. “That should be the logline for the show: Don’t get too comfortable watching this.”
And though ratings were initially tepid and critical response almost wholly negative, Tesfaye said so far he’s “loving” the reaction, calling the discussion about The Idol “healthy,” no matter what is being said. “It’s definitely shaken up the culture for sure. We knew we were making something dark and controversial but true to what we want to say,” he said.
The singer also hinted that information about the vampire-like Tedros is being leaked out slowly on purpose, which Tesfaye said is important for the character’s development. “You try to be as mysterious as possible about who the character is so that you can take [the audience] on this journey,” he explained. “But piece by piece, week by week, we’ll reveal who he is. But he’s what you see on screen. He’s definitely a challenge. He’s despicable, a psychopath — why sugarcoat it? But he’s somehow useful to this girl, and it’s unfortunate and we hate to see it.”
In reality, though, he said there’s nothing mysterious or particularly hypnotic about Tedros. “And we did that on purpose with his look, his outfits, his hair — this guy’s a douchebag,” he said, tacking on that the club owner is a “loser” who is attracted to “gluttonous” sex. “You can tell he cares so much about what he looks like, and he thinks he looks good. But then you see these weird moments of him alone—he rehearses, he’s calculated. And he needs to do that, or he has nothing, he’s pathetic. Which is true of a lot of people who are a fish out of water, put into these scenarios.”
And, don’t worry, he promised, you’ll find out more about that rodent-inspired hairdo later.
