The Weeknd Says “Everything’s a Risk” While Talking ‘The Idol’ Reshoots, Adds He “Sacrificed My Health and Home” to Retool HBO Show

The Weeknd says that he chose to reshoot his The Idol to adhere to the same standards he has for his music, but it came at a cost to his “health and home.”

The singer, real name Abel Tesfaye, along with the HBO series director Sam Levinson and co-star Lily-Rose Depp, spoke about the upcoming show in a new cover story for W magazine, which published Monday. In it, Tesfaye addresses his musical future as The Weeknd, what was behind that canceled SoFi concert, and why he’ll be OK if his new headline-grabbing series is “fucking horrible.”

While discussing the show, which first got its series order back in November 2021, Tesfaye briefly explained his decision to do those now infamous reshoots, which have seen members of the production, including Depp, defend the HBO show against reports of alleged on-set turmoil.

“Film and TV is a new creative muscle for me. I don’t release my music until I think it is great. Why would this be any different?” he told the magazine. “I realized that I need to know that I’ve made the best version of whatever I’m making. It was a challenge to redo The Idol, and, in truth, I sacrificed my health and home to make it work.”

He added that while there’s a possibility “it comes out, and it’s fucking horrible,” from what he’s seen, “The show is great,” and he ultimately knows that he did his “absolute best” on the series. “Everything is a risk: When you’ve done the best you can, I would call that a happy ending.”

In April 2022, it was revealed that the show was getting an overhaul and would be retooled, with Levinson taking over for Amy Seimetz, alongside a number of cast and narrative direction changes. Then in March, nearly a year after HBO announced the retooling, Rolling Stone published a report citing 13 sources close to the show claiming the series faced a number of last-minute revisions, frequent delays and changes to the production.

Those adjustments were partly due to unfinished scripts when Seimetz was serving as the show’s director. But Levinson also reportedly “scrapped the nearly finished $54-$75 million project to rewrite and reshoot the entire thing” — a move that allegedly stretched an expected two to three months left of filming into five.

Sources told Rolling Stone that with Levinson’s arrival, there were tonal shifts in the writing that led to what they described as more disturbing scenes written — though not filmed — portraying sexual violence. One source described having signed up for “a dark satire of fame and the fame model in the 21st century” that “went from satire to the thing it was satirizing.”

During the W magazine cover shoot, Levinson spoke about his vision for the series and Tesfaye’s influence on that. “Abel came to us with a pitch. He said something that I’ll always remember: ‘If I wanted to start a cult, I could.’ What he meant is that his fans were so loyal and devoted that they would follow him anywhere. That was the germ of the idea for The Idol: what happens when a pop star falls for the wrong guy and no one speaks up.”

During the interview published Monday, Depp also spoke to her own role and influences on the series, saying that she changed her character Jocelyn’s hair to blond because it meant she “could be good; she could be evil” and that it offered “beauty mixed with an ‘I don’t give a fuck’ energy” of other pop stars like Britney Spears, Mariah Carey and Beyoncé, who informed her performance.

In response to the March report, HBO and Depp released statements, with the network defending the decision to retool the show and noting that it was a result of early episodes and the series’ initial approach having not met “HBO standards.” Sources also denied claims that almost all of Seimetz’s work was reshot and that the production wasted $50 million worth of work.

“Throughout the process, the creative team has been committed to creating a safe, collaborative and mutually respectful working environment, and last year, the team made creative changes they felt were in the best interest of both the production and the cast and crew,” it continued.

Depp, meanwhile, defended Levinson, stating that the Euphoria creator was a true “collaborator” and had made her feel “respected” through a working “environment in which I felt seen, heard and appreciated.”

In other portions of the W interview, Tesfaye — who said he wants “to kill” [his] The Weeknd alter ego and put an end to making music under his stage name after finishing his current album — opened up about how his work on the HBO show influenced his canceled SoFi concert in September.

The Idol star said the role forced him to “take off the Weeknd outfit, put on Tedros’ wig, shoot with Jocelyn, then go back to being The Weeknd.” It was a series of actions that led to him losing his voice while singing “Can’t Feel My Face.”

“No voice came out at all. That’s never happened before,” he continued. “My theory is that I forgot how to sing because I was playing Tedros, a character who doesn’t know how to sing. I may be looking too deeply into this, but it was terrifying. As The Weeknd, I’ve never skipped a concert. I’ve performed with the flu. I’ll die on that stage. But there was something very complicated going on with my mind at that moment.”