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Accompanying the Weeknd’s album of the same name, Trey Edward Shults’s Hurry Up Tomorrow plays, in many ways, like an extended music video, with a thinly sketched plot painted in broad and illusory strokes. The Weeknd, né Abel Tesfaye, plays a fictionalized version of himself who begins to suffer from sudden voice loss while in the midst of a world tour and encounters a mysterious and troubled young fan named Anima (Jenna Ortega), who’s fleeing a traumatic past. The film suggests that these two characters are destined to meet and spend one really wild night together, wherein Abel comes to term with the person he really is.

In other words, Hurry Up Tomorrow is a full-blown self-therapy session, specifically concerning Tesfaye’s feelings about the public’s perception of him in the wake of The Idol. The HBO series, created by Tesfaye, Sam Levinson, and Reza Fahim,...

Following reports of behind-the-scenes drama with his role as star and co-creator of HBO‘s The Idol, Abel ‘The Weeknd’ Tesfaye took a less hands-on approach to his latest project.

The Hurry Up Tomorrow star praised director Trey Edward Shults for taking the helm and letting him “just focus on performing” in the upcoming musical psychological thriller, which premieres Friday in theaters.

“I wanted to do my job as an actor,” he told Fader. “So, make my piece with the idea, with the script, give whatever notes I have to give, but essentially it being [Shults’] 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 f— about what’s going on behind the scenes.”

Tesfaye added, “He made it easy for me. I always make this joke; Trey’s like a cat when he directs.