Lily-Rose Depp has “never felt more respected and safe” than on Idol set

With one episode remaining in The Idol’s much-discussed but little-liked first season, Lily-Rose Depp is still running defense. Led by Able “The Weeknd” Tesfaye and Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, the show was described as a sexist exercise in torture porn even before the first episode premiered and the finished product hasn’t done much to clear that up. Despite the five-minute ovation at Cannes, the response to the series has largely been negative, with most critics either not getting what this show is trying to say or thinking it’s boring.

Depp, however, knew they were “making something provocative,” which explains why the crux of the first episode revolves around a viral image of Depp’s character with “cum all over her face,” as A.V. Club recapper Manuel Betancourt put it. While the show does seem more desperate to shock than provoke genuine conversation about sex and fame, Depp continues to praise her co-workers. “I’ve never felt more respected and more safe on a set, honestly,” she said, which is a relief considering all the complaints about the production oozing out of the set earlier this year. She continued to say that the “trust” built between cast and creators made “for a really safe-feeling set.”

“When it comes to the nudity and the risqué nature of the role, that to me was really intentional,” Depp tells Vogue Australia. “That was really important to me and something that I was excited about doing. I’m not scared of it. I think we live in a highly sexualized world. I think that’s an interesting thing to explore.”

The show has been at the center of controversy since a Rolling Stone’s exposé accused its showrunners of forcing out original series director Amy Seimetz and directing the show into sexist territory. Even the show’s intimacy coordinators, who choreographed all the sex the Weeknd and Levinson cooked up and helped foster a safe environment for Depp to create their provocations, felt that The Idol does viewers a disservice.

In recent weeks, as the show rolled out to a collective groan, Tesfaye has taken a different marketing approach: Blaming the audience for not understanding his work. You see, his character is supposed to be gross and irredeemable in an unfunny and not particularly entertaining way. Unfortunately, that explanation didn’t help, considering the series’ episode order was reduced from a six to five just this week.

As Betancourt put it: “The Idol has gone from a tantalizing proposition (a provocative sendup of the industry driven by a salacious interest in equating pop music with porn, and maybe also investigating the cult-like tendencies of those who flirt with and crave fame) that struggled to straddle the tonal fine line required to pull its ambitious ideas off to … well, an almost unwatchable weekly dip into soft-core erotic scenes set in between a series of talky industry navel-gazing bits.”

The season finale of The Idol airs this Sunday.

[via The Hollywood Reporter]