There’s a moment in “Hurry Up Tomorrow” — the new film that arrives in theaters on May 16, co-written, produced by, and starring the R&B singer the Weeknd, whose given name is Abel Tesfaye — in which Anima, a mysterious character played by Jenna Ortega, whacks the singer over the head with a bottle of champagne, knocking him out cold.
“That’s my girlfriend’s favorite scene,” Mr. Tesfaye said.
The film is a cinematic roman à clef. It tells the story of a superstar called the Weeknd, known for his melancholic music and reclusive personality, who is on a massive stadium tour, pumping himself up with drugs, booze and other assorted trappings of fame. (Barry Keoghan plays his best friend.) When the star loses his voice onstage, it sets off his descent into surrealistic madness.
In 2022, at the end of his first stadium tour, the IRL Weeknd, a superstar known for his moody music, obsessive privacy and openness about past drug and alcohol abuse, lost his voice while performing at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. He has said that the incident triggered a mental breakdown and inspired a personal reckoning.
His sixth studio album, also titled “Hurry Up Tomorrow” — written as he shot the film in 2023— came out earlier this year. Mr. Tesfaye said it will be his last release as the Weeknd. The singer, now 35, is not planning to quit making music. He’s just retiring the persona that has been his musical home since he dropped out of high school in Toronto and started putting out mixtapes online.
Jenna Ortega, left, and the director Trey Edward Shults, center, with Mr. Tesfaye on the set of “Hurry Up Tomorrow.”Credit…Lionsgate
“My voice failing me, or me failing my voice, however you want to look at it — I really felt like I went up there and my body was telling me to sit down, it was telling me, you have nothing else to say,” he said, as his dogs, a Doberman named Caesar and a Cane Corso called Zelda, sat nearby on opposite sides of the tennis court at the singer’s Bel Air mansion in Los Angeles.
