Back in 2020, Halsey fans were overjoyed when they learned that the singer was planning to make their acting debut. The “Ghost” singer revealed that she was planning to collaborate with her good friend, Sydney Sweeney, on a miniseries called The Players Table. However, it’s been 2.5 years since the HBO Max series was announced, and it has yet to be filmed. So what is the reason for the delay?
How Halsey joined ‘The Players Table’ cast
But just how did Halsey get cast in The Players Table without any acting experience? A lot of it is due to her friendship with Sweeney. After Sweeney read They Wish They Were Us (the book that The Players Table is based on) she knew wanted to make a show about it. After acquiring the rights, she thought about how she could make the show as attractive as possible when she was optioning it, and she immediately thought of Halsey. Having worked with the singer on their music video “Graveyard,” Sweeney felt that Halsey had the creative mindset to excel at acting. Furthermore, her friend had expressed interest in acting before, so she felt that The Players Table was the perfect opportunity.
The singer explains why filming for ‘The Players Table’ is delayed
There’s been plenty of buzz about The Players Table since it was announced in September of 2020. However, filming for the show has yet to begin. But just why is that? While some may assume it’s thanks to the busy schedules of both Halsey and Sweeney, there’s actually more to it than that. One of the show’s producing partners unexpectedly and tragically died on Christmas of 2021, which has contributed to the show’s delay.
“We’re still writing,” Halsey revealed about The Players Table to the Spout podcast. “We took a little bit of time. The project was a collaboration between myself, Sydney, and a company that was headed by Jean-Marc Vallée, who is an absolutely iconic and legendary auteur. And he passed really unexpectedly. We’re taking our time with it because I think we have a lot of — there’s a lot of incentive to make it as best as it can possibly be for him and in honor of him. So we’re still writing. We’re going to make sure it’s perfect before it hits the screen.”
Halsey still made her acting debut alongside Sweeney
The Players Table may be a bit delayed, but that hasn’t stopped Halsey from jumpstarting their acting career. In the aforementioned interview, she spoke a little bit about her first professional acting gig, which was, coincidentally, alongside Sweeney. “I actually ended up shooting a movie with Sydney,” Halsey shared. “It was my acting debut. It was a movie called National Anthem, and I shot it for two months, and it was such a crazy experience.”
National Anthem has since been renamed Americana. The film is currently set to make its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 17. So while fans of Sweeney and Halsey may have to wait a bit longer to see them in The Players Table, they’ll be able to see the entertainers share a screen sooner rather than later.
