Why The Weeknd Made the Bold Decision to Shoot ‘The Idol’ in His Own Home

Why did The Weeknd allow his show, The Idol, to shoot in his actual home for weeks on end? The reason is pretty surprising. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Direct from Hollywood with Ryan Seacrest, well the buzzer over
the Weekend's upcoming TV show, The Idol co created with
you for his show runner Sam Levinson.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Couldn't be any bigger. So when the two of them
watched what they'd shot for the first season and realized
they wanted to reshoot nearly all of it, you might
think HBO would simply throw money at them to make
sure they got it right, but costs had to be
kept under control even for a show of this magnitude
and inspiration struck during a meeting at the Weekend's la home,
Sam Tell's w magazine, If we're going to reshoot from

(00:28):
the beginning, I knew it had to be for less money.
At Abel's house, looking around at the forty thousand square feet,
I said, it's stunning here. You can't buy production designs
like this. What if we shoot it here? Able to
put down a drink and said, do you have insurance?
I said yes, He said, I'm okay with it. They
even built a studio in the basement so the Weekend
and producer Mike Team could work on the score while

(00:50):
he wasn't on camera. The Idol It's HBO Max Sunday.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
That's direct from Hollywood.