Interview: Trey Edward Shults Talks About his Newest Film ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow’ a Musical Odyssey Starring The Weeknd [VIDEO]

Trey Edward Shults is a trailblazer. When your early work in film includes being on three of Terrence Malick’s sets, perhaps it’s inevitable that such a unique voice and unwavering vision is the product. But from his psychological family drama short Krisha and its feature-length adaptation, to the paralyzing horror of It Comes at Night, through to 2019’s masterpiece of a family drama Waves, a soundtrack driven odyssey of self-destruction and healing that flows between aspect ratios, protagonists and the passage of time, Shults is not only one of the best contemporary filmmakers, but one of the most singular ones. Even in an age where the likes of A24 – who distributed all three of the aforementioned films – and a whole roster of captivating, personal, independent filmmakers are leading the charge of artistic vision over executive mandates, you know damn well when you’re in the midst of a Trey Edward Shults experience.

In what is, in many ways, the pinnacle of his progression as a filmmaker, Shults has most recently teamed up with an artist who is just as much a trailblazer in the world of pop music: Abel Tesfaye, more commonly known as The Weeknd. “My producers said ‘Abel has an idea for a movie, and I took it as just a pure opportunity to meet him,” said Shults, not expecting anything more to come of it. “But we just hit it off, I felt a connection to him, and I felt the genuine love and respect he had for my films.” From their conversation, Shults drafted an outline for what would become Hurry Up Tomorrow, Shults’ most recent psychological thriller and a companion piece to Tesfaye’s album of the same name. Hurry Up Tomorrow stars Tesfaye as a fictionalized version of himself who, on the verge of a mental breakdown from insomnia, is pulled into an existential odyssey by a mysterious stranger. Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan also star in Shults’ musical odyssey into Tesfaye’s mind.

The film, however, came before the album. “Abel was very smart about it,” said Shults. “He didn’t just come to me with ‘here’s an album, make me a movie.’ It was, ‘let’s make a movie, and maybe it becomes an album too.’ He treated the movie as number one. I wasn’t beholden to one thing. He was open and supportive, we just made this movie, and he made music for it along the way. My big thing going into this was, I didn’t want to do a visual album. I wanted to try to use music the way we did in Waves, and just push it further. We weren’t just licensing songs, we had the people making the songs and score interconnect, making the freshest, most unique thing we can. It was a dream scenario for me.”  ⁨

I got to sit down with Trey Edward Shults to talk about Hurry Up Tomorrow as its release in theaters draws near. With his filmography thus far dealing in matters of the mind and the self-destructive pursuit of excellence, Shults elaborated on the influence of therapy and his family history on his work. “A big thing for me is taking it back to my mom and my stepdad both being therapists. They were very good about me owning up to my own flaws and being open with communication. We’re sloppy humans, all of us, but the more I can just be transparent and honest helps me with every aspect of my life. I love making movies about it. To me, Krisha and Hurry Up Tomorrow especially are about self-reflection. What this movie builds to is how desperate times call for desperate measures. It’s a wake-up call, he has work to do. You gotta stare yourself in the mirror to really address your own soul.” Hurry Up Tomorrow arrives in theaters on May 16th.

Check out my full interview with writer, director, and editor Trey Edward Shults below, where we dive deeper into his working relationship with The Weeknd, why he considers Hurry Up Tomorrow to be the easiest film he’s made since his debut, how a Nina Simone sample and a rough demo gave way to original score in a pivotal scene, and which song off of the titular album Shults sees as the most enhanced by its context in the film.