The Idol: Hank Azaria Denies On-Set Chaos & Embraced The Production's Evolution

Max dropped their newest original series "The Idol" on June 4, 2023, but even before that, it was making plenty of headlines... and not in a particularly good way. Premiering officially at the Cannes Film Festival weeks before it dropped on HBO and Discovery's new streamer, "The Idol," co-created by "Euphoria" showrunner Sam Levinson and pop star turned TV star Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye, sent the industry into a frenzy when news broke that the filming process was extremely fraught, and that one important director's exit had turned the show into something completely different.

For his part, veteran comedian Hank Azaria — who plays Chaim, the longtime co-manager of the titular pop idol Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) — told The Independent that filming wasn't troubled, but organic. As Azaria said, the spontaneity of Levinson's working style and the show's numerous reshoots worked for him: ""I can understand how, from a distance, especially if you're the person in charge of putting out script pages that day or making sure the right actor has the right wardrobe, that you would see it as chaos." 

Azaria actually said the experience was "organic," even when he was called to appear in scenes for which he wasn't originally scheduled. "From the outside, that appears like chaos," the actor continued. "From the inside, it's thrillingly creative, especially when there's a guy who's really watching what you're doing, and really trying to help you bring out the best version of that."

As for the show's most contentious and controversial scenes — specifically, its sex scenes — Azaria promises that Levinson and everyone on set handled them with care and respect throughout the process.

"I wasn't involved in any of the sexual shenanigans in [The Idol]," Azaria admitted. "But I can tell you that there was tremendous respect, collaboration, feedback, and checking in from Sam about whether everybody was comfortable with what was going on. I understand anybody being daunted or triggered by what they might be seeing. That's understandable. All I can say is in making it, a lot of care was taken with everybody."

On the one hand, it's tempting to take Azaria at his word here; on the other, there is literally a scene within the first 30 minutes of all of "The Idol" where Azaria's own character locks an intimacy coordinator into a room so that a photoshoot can continue with more nudity than was originally included in the shoot's documentation. Per his own admission, Azaria wasn't involved in some of the more risqué scenes, but hopefully, he's correct that everything was conducted safely and respectfully.

So what were the rumors surrounding "The Idol" in the first place, for context? Well, in March of 2023, Rolling Stone published a bombshell piece delving into allegations that, in  the wake of its original director, Levinson and Tesfaye essentially overhauled the entire series, requiring intense reshoots and ratcheting up the overall intensity of it all. Thirteen sources told Rolling Stone similar stories, with one saying that, thanks to reshoots and rewrites, "it was, let's just say, a sh*tshow."

One of the most disturbing allegations in the piece is what supposedly happened after director Amy Seimetz left the project. Seimetz, a veteran of shows like "The Girlfriend Experience," would have been an excellent choice for a show about an exploited young female pop star, but she parted ways from Levinson and Tesfaye in April of 2022. Rolling Stone then says that Tesfaye, in particular, aimed to steer the series away from having too much of a "female perspective," hence the "creative overhaul."

Ultimately, many feel Levinson's direction turned "The Idol" from a satire of exploitation into simple exploitation. "What I signed up for was a dark satire of fame and the fame model in the 21st century," a production member told Rolling Stone. "The things that we subject our talent and stars to, the forces that put people in the spotlight and how that can be manipulated in the post-Trump world. It went from satire to the thing it was satirizing."

If you want to see what all the fuss is about for yourself, "The Idol" is streaming on Max now.