On Sunday, Jennie Ruby Jane โ perhaps better recognized as Jennie from Blackpink โ made her acting debut in HBO's The Idol, which follows the complex relationship between Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), an aspiring pop idol, and Tedros (Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye), a self-help guru and cult leader.
Despite widespread criticism of the series for its graphic sexual content and themes, viewers and critics alike praised Jennie for her performance as Dyanne, one of Jocelyn's backup dancers and friends. After the series premiere, Jennie became the top Twitter trend in the US, which included hashtags such as #JennieOnTheIdolPremiere and #Jennie.
If you haven't watched The Idol, Jennie makes her on-screen appearance as Dyanne when she expertly demonstrates the choreography for Jocelyn's latest single ("World Class Sinner") for a struggling Jocelyn, who watches while silently crying behind opaque sunglasses. In an effort to comfort her, Dyanne tells Jocelyn, "You've got this. We're all here because of you."
Throughout the episode, Dyanne and Jocelyn hit the sauna together, go out to a nightclub that Dyanne had suggested earlier, ride in a top-down convertible with characters played by Troye Sivan and Rachel Sennott, and do shots with a cameo-making Alexa Demie (who stars as Maddy in Euphoria). The last we see of Dyanne, she and Jocelyn find themselves in Tedros's club.
While at Cannes Film Festival this year for The Idol, Jennie attributed the reason behind her interest in the series to the similarities between her own experience growing up in the music industry (she began training to become a K-pop idol at 14) and the series's exploration of the music industry and fame. "It was an opportunity to just be myself and be brave," she revealed.
"I trusted Sam to be collaborative with all the scenes that we would be working on together because it was about the industry. The fact that it was about the music industry fascinated me, and I thought I could bring something to the role," Jennie elaborated, explaining that she didn't train or prepare for the role because series creator Sam Levinson wanted the K-pop idol to be herself.
Between Jennie's actual acting debut and flawless dance scene โ which Jennie admitted she "didn't have a lot of time to learn the choreography for" โ viewers had a lot (of good things) to say about her performance:
1.
the idol is ass like idgaf sam levinson and the weeknd should thank jennie for making people tune in pic.twitter.com/Ld0KljTHXv
โ ๏ธ ูTHE IDOL JENNIE ๐ฌ (@JNKSNS) June 5, 2023
HBO
4.
first episode of the idol was so bad, the dialogues are so 2015 overdone tumblr templateโฆ only entertaining part was watching jennie dancing bc everything else was trash pic.twitter.com/FvrLO5RvWl
The amount of time they are posting Jennie one would think she's a main character in this show. ๐ญ That's how you know she made the most noise even with her 3-4 mins. screentime. https://t.co/ck3WF5Ev2Z
As a fan of Jennie, I'm glad to see viewers praise her performance. Personally, however, I haven't watched The Idol since production sources called the series "torture porn," and the replacement of female director Amy Seimetz reportedly due to The Weeknd's dislike of the "female perspective" that centered Jocelyn's character โ but if you have, or if you have thoughts about Jennie's performance, I'm curious to hear them in the comments below.
