HBO’s new series “The Idol” follows Lily-Rose Depp as Jocelyn, a pop star getting ready to stage her comeback. If that sounds too basic, don’t worry. The series follows Jocelyn as she gets wrapped up in a cult run by Tedros, played by The Weeknd, aka Abel Tesfaye (and the series has had some real-life controversies, too). Jocelyn’s story has some real-life analogs, though the fictional pop star isn’t based on any one specific singer. And as viewers get to hear Jocelyn’s music for the first time, they might wonder if that’s really Depp singing in the show. Yes, Depp is providing Jocelyn’s singing voice – and she was really nervous about it.
For her audition, Depp had to sing a cappella. “I thought, ‘Here’s where I don’t get called back,'” she told W magazine in May. She sang a minute of the song “Fever.” Still, she told the outlet she “never thought” she’d get the part because she knew “there would be many lovely ladies who are more musical than me.”
Depp told the New York Times in an interview published June 3, “I was so nervous about the musical aspect. It’s not what I do and this character has been doing this her entire life.” She was particularly terrified the first time she performed for The Weeknd, but, “Little by little, we got to know each other more and got comfortable with each other.”
Depp told Elle in November 2022 that despite her reservations, singing and dancing weren’t the hardest part of the role for her. “It was more about understanding how alone you can feel, even when everybody’s watching you,” she explained.
Depp had some help from her family, too, when it came to understanding fame. Her mom, Vanessa Paradis, is also a singer in addition to model and actor. Depp told Elle of her mom’s influence, “It was really cool for me and my brother to see our mom being the ultimate comforting and loving person, but also having such a rich, full life of her own, watching her go onstage and sing for thousands of people, and just be so in her own zone and in touch with herself and her art.”
“The Idol” actually isn’t the first time Depp has sang on-screen. In the 2016 film “Yoga Hosers,” she and Harley Quinn Smith (daughter of the film’s director Kevin Smith) performed a cover of “Babe” by Styx.
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