The Weeknd Debuts 'The Idol' At Cannes Film Festival

Canada’s The Weeknd walked the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday night for the premiere of The Idol.

The Toronto-born superstar was joined at the Grand Théâtre Lumière by co-star Lily-Rose Depp and the show’s co-creator Sam Levinson.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the first two episodes of the steamy series were “met with polite applause from the festival audience, who gave it a standard-measure 5-minute standing ovation.”

The Weeknd, credited as Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye, plays a charismatic nightlife impresario who seduces Depp’s character, a famous singer trying to stage a comeback. (Pop star Troye Sivan also stars in the series, as well as Canada's Dan Levy.)

Deadline’s Damon Wise reported that Depp gives “a highly sexualized performance that also is grounded and often vulnerable, discomfitingly addressing the fine lines between porn and art, power and exploitation that have faced young women in the music industry for years.”

In her THR review, Lovia Gyarkye described Tesfaye’s acting as “a bit stiff. She opined that The Idol “shows glimmers of potential when it stops trying so hard to be shocking.”

According to Gyarkye, “there’s a strenuousness to the sex scenes between [Lily Rose] Depp and Tesfaye that kills any sense of eroticism. 

Mary McNamara of The Los Angeles Times echoed this. “It's tough to imagine anyone would consider any of the action erotic when it is so ham-fisted,” she wrote.

The Idol premieres on June 4 on Crave (part of Bell Media, parent company of this website).