The Weeknd shared how his personal struggles with sleep paralysis shaped his movie Hurry Up Tomorrow.
The hitmaker told The Fader about the villains in his film before diving into a deeply personal explanation of sleep paralysis. “There are no antagonists in this film,” he said. “I think that sleep paralysis is the enemy.”
“That’s something I was really dealing with, still am to this day. Not as much as before but they’re very vivid nightmares where you’re in bed and you’re half asleep and you’re aware of your surroundings,” The Weeknd continued. “But, you can’t move and you’re paralyzed for almost a minute and sometimes you see a shadowy figure in the corner and you hear a voice.”
The Weeknd also shared his coping methods. “I did my research on it and it’s just lack of sleep,” the singer explained. “Your brain is still awake when you’re asleep. My big medicine for it was to just turn your phone off, turn the TV off, turn all the lights off.”
Hurry Up Tomorrow — the movie, not the album — hits theaters on May 16. The trailer was shown last month at the 2025 CinemaCon at Caesars Colosseum in Las Vegas, where Jenna Ortega, who stars in the film with The-Dream and Barry Keoghan, called it “hard to describe.”
“I haven’t seen a movie quite like it. It’s very soulful,” she said. “It feels more like an experience, and when you go into it with that mentality, it makes sense.”
Earlier this year, The Weeknd told us about how his strategically timed naps help him manage stress. “I’ve been fond of taking naps recently,” he said. “Astronaut naps. 26 minutes. Turn the whole world off. Turn all the lights off and put your alarm to 26 minutes exactly. No more or less. Works like magic.”
