How The Idol prepared The Weeknd for Hurry Up Tomorrow

The Weeknd’s film nerdiness is his most personally endearing trait. Before he became one of the biggest pop stars on the planet, the singer born Abel Tesfaye was a homeless teenager in Toronto who found temporary solace in the aisles of a local boutique movie rental store called Queen Video. Through cinema, Tesfaye learned how to create a world: his visual identities, from his groundbreaking early mixtapes to his diamond-selling present, have a depth that goes beyond your average pop star’s eras. His jump to feature films felt inevitable, but also promising.

Hurry Up Tomorrow, his first feature-length due in theaters May 16, is that leap. A companion piece with the 2025 album of the same name, the psychological horror-drama stars Tesfaye as a fictionalized version of himself who’s sent into a mental tailspin after losing his voice onstage (this is based on a real event in 2022 when Tesfaye was forced to end a show in California when he was suddenly unable to sing). The film is co-written by Tesfaye with Reza Fahim, who helped script HBO’s somewhat unfairly reviled The Idol, and Trey Edward Shults. The 36-year-old Shults is the director behind Krisha, It Comes At Night, and Waves, independent hits that helped establish A24 as a cultural force.

Over a recent video call, Tesfaye and Shults are eager to speak about their collaboration, though I wasn’t permitted to watch the whole thing before our interview. Full screeners of Hurry Up Tomorrow were not available — instead, the studio sent a 30-minute collection of “extended scenes.” That makes a critical appraisal impossible, but I can say that what I was allowed to see left me intrigued: exhaustion and vulnerability are carved on Tesfaye’s face, and it’s the window through which Shults’ ambiguous torments crawl through.

Barry Keoghan co-stars as an oily hanger-on named Lee, and Jenna Ortega is Tesfaye’s mysterious companion Anima, a muse, siren, ghost, or perhaps some combination of all three. The film’s autofictional element is emphasized with concert footage shot at a real Weeknd concert, where thousands of roaring fans take on the tenor of a demonic chorus, clamoring for a piece of Tesfaye’s soul. Historically, most pop star Hollywood vehicles are safe and saccharine affairs: that Tesfaye decided to make his Purple Rain more Perfect Blue than The Bodyguard is to his credit, whether or not the film ends up being a good one.

Ahead of the release of Hurry Up Tomorrow, we spoke with Tesfaye and Shults about their mutual love for Ingmar Bergman, the influence of dreams on the film, and what Abel learned from The Idol.

The FADER: To start, I was wondering if either of you had any questions for each other, about the movie or movies in general.

Shults: Hmm, I know a lot about this guy and I know the movies we like and that inspired this.

Tesfaye: How much of what you learned with Terrence Malick did you bring into this film?

Shults: My first job, I was a film loader for Terrence Malick, loading IMAX. The big thing was twofold: One was working with film, and I’ve always wanted to shoot on film. Secondly, Terry is obviously a singular true auteur. He makes films only he could make. That’s something I’ve always strived towards.

I think my movies are a bit more traditional, narratively. But the way Terry uses music with imagery, and the way he’ll use montage at times, the ebbs and flow of that and the emotion of that music with image —

Tesfaye: Like Tree of Life.

Shults: That’s huge for everything I made. Huge for this movie, too.

Tesfaye: You definitely see his inspiration even on Waves, too. The montage at the beginning.

Shults: Yeah. I got to work on Tree of Life. But it’s also one of my favorite movies ever made.

The FADER: Abel, in a previous interview you said you’ve watched Ingmar Bergman’s Persona 10 times. The premise of this film seems perfect to explore similar themes. Can you talk a little bit about how Bergman and Persona inspired your conception of this film?

Tesfaye: Well, to be honest with you, the genesis of the film, I didn’t have Persona as inspiration at all. It was actually Trey that brought that in and was like, “study this movie.” I’ve always been a fan of Bergman’s work. But for this one specifically, I think I had to really get into the mind of Trey. And then when I watched it again, and then he sent that [script] draft, it made so much sense. And then I was able to bring my own inspirations into it.

Shults: Persona is one of my favorite movies ever made. The way he melds character psychology in a just riveting, compelling, at times scary way, one of the greatest things I ever saw. [To Abel] After we met, you said you had lost your voice, but it was psychologically driven. That was the light bulb that clicked with me that we could have a movie where you go on a ride with it.

If you want to take [the movie] at face value, you can, or there’s a way deeper, richer Jungian psychological dream analysis thing going on–

Tesfaye: That you wrote in detail in the script, by the way. It’s either this linear story that is entertaining, [but] if you watch a few more times, you can pick up on what you’re saying.

Shults: And that’s how I felt when I saw Persona. I didn’t even know how everything clicked into place. I was just riveted. You can watch it the rest of your life and take different things from it. And I was like, if we can just strive to get like a little bit of that in this, that would be amazing.

Tesfaye: But it’s very much a Trey Edward Schults film. This might be your most psychological film. Because I was such a fan of his, I was hoping that it fit in his body of work, because I just didn’t want to fuck up his streak. But yeah, we got a great Trey Edward Schults film, man.

The FADER: I’m also interested in the role that dreams play in both of your respective works. Some artists can’t remember their dreams, some artists do. So I was wondering if you have one memorable dream that you’ve had in your life that perhaps came as a source of inspiration for this film or for your work in general?

Tesfaye: I can answer that one. One of the main concepts of this film is sleep paralysis. That is something that I was really dealing with, still am to this day, not as much as before, but they’re very vivid nightmares where you’re in bed and you’re half asleep, half awake. You’re aware of your surroundings, but you can’t move. You’re paralyzed for almost a minute. Sometimes you see a shadowy figure in the corner and you hear voices, sweet nothings. It’s saying nothing, but they’re voices.

I did my research on it and it’s just a lack of sleep. Your brain is still awake when you’re asleep. So my biggest medicine for it is just turn your phone off, turn the TV off, turn all the lights off. And yeah, you won’t get it. The irony is it’s got to all be dark and scary for you to sleep through the night.

Shults: I’ve never had sleep paralysis, but it’s horrifying. When he told me about it, I was like, we have to use that in the movie.

The FADER: Abel, this role is perhaps your meatiest acting role yet. You came from The Idol, which, by the way, loved your performance on the last episode.

Tesfaye: Oh, you were the one guy?

The FADER: Yeah, that was me.

Tesfaye: Don’t get fired. [laughs]

The FADER: In the clips that I’ve seen from this film, you seem all in, completely tapping something for this role. What was your process like to become an actor that could perform next to talents like Barry Keoghan and Jenna Ortega?

Tesfaye: Well, look, man, the camera is so sensitive. It just picks up your thoughts. And I knew going into this film, you know, especially with someone like Trey, obviously I would never want to let someone like him down. I wanted to do my job as an actor. So, you know, make my peace with the idea, with the script, give whatever notes I have to give. But essentially it being his film, where I give him the material, he makes the movie he wants to make, and I get to just focus on being an actor and not give a fuck about what’s going on behind the scenes.

And he made it easy for me. I always make this joke: Trey’s like a cat when he directs. You don’t know where he is. Like, I’ve seen him under a table one time, looking at a monitor, in a bathtub. He really doesn’t want to get in the way of whatever is happening in front of the camera. I got to just focus on performing and doing what I do in front of the camera and just stay in the role.

And we had great people working on it. We had our friend, Kevin [Turen], who passed away, who was a producer on it. Trusted him, trusted his ideas, trusted Trey as a director, trusted Chayse [Irvin, cinematographer], trusted Barry, who’s been a long-time friend of mine. I knew he was the only one that could play this role because we were like brothers already. So a lot of it didn’t feel like acting. And Jenna was so patient with me and just gave incredible notes. And she’s just doing so much heavy lifting in the film that I was in a great space to just perform. Just work with people who genuinely want to work with you.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity