Key Takeaways
- Tyler, The Creator criticizes leak culture for its lack of empathy and disregard for artists’ personal work.
- Past leaks of his own projects, like his documentary Wolf, shaped his views on creative ownership.
- As Marty Supreme nears release, Tyler teases his desire to play whimsical villains and cult classics on screen.
Tyler, The Creator is an artist, and he’s sensitive about his s**t. The multifaceted entertainer is currently making his media rounds ahead of the Christmas Day debut of his first feature film, Marty Supreme. He stars alongside Timothée Chalamet in the Josh Safdie-directed flick.
On Wednesday (Dec. 17), he and Safdie appeared on “The Ebro, Laura, Rosenberg Show” on Apple Music to discuss working on the movie. During the discussion, Tyler recalled the moment he got his hands on the script. He described meeting the director at a diner in the cut and being handed a manila folder with strict instructions, “Don’t pull it out in front of no one.”
Safdie shared that he’d experienced a few blunders where actors lost scripts and details of early scripts for other projects surfaced prematurely, and he wanted “no one to know about the movie except for the people who are collaborating on it.” His remarks lent themselves to a larger critique of how easily people can mishandle and underappreciate intellectual property.
Apple’s 2025 Artist of the Year explained, “Folks don’t understand that now, like, how personal these things we make are, whether we want people to hear it or not. Sometimes it’s just ideas that’s for us, so this leak culture right now and people f**king wanting to group buy and take these things, it’s really stealing… Everyone just lacks any kind of empathy, but they don’t understand how personal it is.”
And Tyler isn’t just speaking from hearsay; he knows firsthand how devastating leaks can be, like his documentary titled Wolf that surfaced online in 2014 with “never-before-seen footage,” according to Billboard. The Odd Future star likened the violation to a break-in, saying, “If someone ran in your crib and took your doll ‘cause they like collecting dolls or something, it’s like, ’Oh, my grandmother gave me that on her deathbed. It means a lot.’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t give a f**k; I wanna look at it.’ Like, folks don’t think like that, and it’s not just music.”
Tyler, The Creator is ready for his on-screen villain era
The Grammy Award winner is ready to dive deep into his acting bag with a role similar to Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. He told Ebro Darden, “I want to play a villain like that, like, super whimsical, but I’m still going to murder you. I love that! I wanna do that so bad.” He’s even open to tackling a cult classic, noting, “And then, if they did a Paid in Full today, I would definitely do one of those.” Tyler has already brought a range of characters to life in his music, videos and TV show guest appearances, but his leap onto the silver screen feels like the perfect place to unleash the depths of endless creativity.