The Weeknd and Lily-Rose Depp’s HBO drama The Idol, which premiered on June 4, has been a topic of discussion on Twitter ever since its second episode aired on Sunday. The viewers did not like the recent episode because of a particular reason – a sex scene involving The Weeknd and Lily-Rose Depp. For them, the shot was “cringe” and the singer’s Tedros is “one of the worst written characters they’ve seen in a very long time.” Since Sunday, Twitter is flooded with negative reviews about The Weeknd’s scene, which is termed “NSFW (not safe for work)” by the audience because of the way club owner and cult leader Tedros is shown engaging in intimate acts with Jocelyn (Lily-Rose). Now the singer has opened up about those scenes by labelling them as ‘gluttonous’.
In one of his recent interviews with GQ, Weeknd explained that the backlash was unwarranted since those explicit scenes were not supposed to feel sexy, “There’s nothing sexy about it. When we use Basic Instinct as a reference, we’re using 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,” he said.
He further added, “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.”
Talking more about the vibe of his character in the show, Weeknd emphasized that there are no ‘hypnotizing’ traits to Tedros. He stated, “there’s nothing really mysterious or hypnotizing about him. And we did that on purpose with his look, his outfits, his hair—the guy’s a douchebag. 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.”
“You look at him, and this is a score—Jocelyn might be the biggest score he’s ever had. It’s very obvious. He’s over-indulging, he walks into this house looking around like, Goddamn, am I way over my head? This can be the biggest job I’ve ever done. Whatever it is that he’s doing. Even the sex, it’s so gluttonous.
Especially in episode 2. ‘Gluttony’ is the only word I can think of [to describe it]. He can’t believe he’s there. He comes off like such a loser. Those moments are the humanity that you find in a psychopath, the chink in his armor.”
The Idol also streams on Max. It has been in the news over its explicit content ever since it premiered earlier this month. The show also stars BLACKPINK’s Jennie Kim, Suzanna Son, Rachel Sennott, Eli Roth and Hari Nef, among others.
Comments
0 comment