ALTUZARRA Shirt and Skirt, at altuzarra.com. TIFFANY & CO. Necklace and Earrings, at tiffany.com. HAGELSTAM Shoes, at hagelstam.com.
Photo: Chloe Chippendale
About five months ago, Olivia Wilde was standing stage right at the Eccles Center theater in Park City, Utah, just after the credits rolled on her third feature film, The Invite. “I white-knuckled my way through that screening. My inner monologue was like, They all hated it,” she recalls on a May afternoon at a Blue Bottle Coffee in Los Angeles, dressed down in jeans and a red vintage sweatshirt. Row by row, the audience rose to its feet. People were getting up quickly to leave in droves, she’d thought. Even more humiliating, she was supposed to participate in a Q&A onstage with her cast. But nobody was walking out. A smattering of claps became resounding applause. They were giving Wilde a standing ovation. “That’s when I started whispering to myself, Don’t cry. Don’t cry,” she says.
MCQUEEN Jacket, Shirt, Pants, and Bow Tie at mcqueen.com. VAN CLEEF & ARPELS Earrings (worn as brooch) and Ring, at vancleefarpels.com.
Photo: Chloe Chippendale
The filmmaker had good reason to feel apprehensive. Booksmart, Wilde’s 2019 directorial debut about two brainy high-school seniors who realize they had wasted their time working too hard and partying too little, was widely celebrated, but it didn’t make a big dent at the box office. And when her second feature, Don’t Worry Darling, hit theaters in 2022, it was mostly panned. (The Guardian called it “empty feminism.”) Tabloids revealed she was dating Harry Styles, her decade-younger co-star, and reported on alleged major friction between star Florence Pugh and Wilde. The buzz was bad. “I have never had a screaming match on my set. I was never not available on set. I wanted to be like, ‘None of this is true,’” she now says about those rumors.
Still, the experience took its toll. Hollywood “has robbed me of my naïveté for sure,” Wilde says. “I deeply hate the feeling of being misunderstood, too.” Jennifer Garner schooled her early in her career, when they starred together in a 2011 indie film called Butter, about how actresses get categorized. “She said it’s like you get cast in a soap opera by the public,” Wilde remembers. “And they assign you an obvious archetype: the damsel in distress, the good girl, the pretty girl.” Wilde says she was initially cast as “an object of desire.” But in the past few years, she feels her character was rewritten: “I became the full-on villain. Like Cruella.”
Wilde doesn’t regret her time with Styles. She describes that relationship to me as “loving and wonderful and joyful.” (The pair dated for around two years until late 2022.) But she hates that she didn’t directly, publicly acknowledge the negative buzz around the film and her personal life. The studio and others involved wanted her to stay stoic. “I was told, ‘Don’t say a fucking word. Just go out there and smile,’” she recalls, shaking her head. “I resent that, but it taught me it’s not the way I want to handle things.”
This time around, Wilde has the upper hand. The Invite, inspired by the Spanish film Sentimental and co-written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, sparked a 72-hour bidding war at Sundance. A24 eventually beat out big studios Warner Bros. and Netflix after reportedly forking over more than $12 million. The deal marked one of the festival’s largest sales, and Wilde got what she wanted: a theatrical release. “My goal was to get theatrical distribution, but there was no part of me that thought this could be a healing experience,” she tells me.
The Invite stars Wilde and Seth Rogen as Angela and Joe, a contemptuous married couple who invite their swinger neighbors, Hawk (Edward Norton) and Piña (a platinum blonde Penélope Cruz) over for dinner. The bittersweet romp tracks how a marriage implodes over the course of an evening. “I really hope the innate optimism of the movie affects couples in relationships in that it gives them a choice, gives them agency,” Wilde says. “We can slide into resenting our partners for our own personal unhappiness.”
BOTTEGA VENETA Jacket, Shirt, and Pants, at bottegaveneta.com. VAN CLEEF & ARPELS Rings, at vancleefarpels.com. HAGELSTAM Shoes, at hagelstam.com.
Photo: Chloe Chippendale
Wilde read the script for the part that would become Piña years ago but never set up a meeting. An earlier casting—with Amy Adams and Paul Rudd—fell apart by 2024, and Wilde stepped in to direct for the art-house studio Annapurna. She isn’t out to prove anything to anyone. “I was scared,” she admits. “But I’m not Michael Jordan, going back on the court to break every record. If I’m like, I’ll show you, I’m still trying to achieve success in your eyes, not mine.” Wilde had a vision that would test everyone’s stamina on set. “I saw this movie as an opportunity for an experiment to shoot the scenes in order and to rehearse it like a play.” She spent two weeks running rehearsals with the actors and writers for seven hours a day.
Wilde is instantly recognizable with cheekbones that could cut diamonds and feline pistachio-green eyes. As we chat at the café, a woman approaches. “I’m a mom to a queer teen, and I want you to know that I so appreciate Booksmart,” she says. “She’s 13, and I made a list of all the high-school movies she should see, and that’s at the top.” Wilde lights up. “Oh my God, I’m so honored,” she says to the woman, placing her hand over her heart. A moment later, she turns to me: “When people come up to me like that, it makes all the bullshit of this fucking business worth it, you know?” She pauses to rake a hand through her honey-blonde hair. “It’s been much more vicious than I predicted.”
After Don’t Worry Darling, Wilde took a few years to rebuild herself and do some therapy. She read books by Eve Babitz and Carrie Fisher and started journaling. “I don’t think you know what you’re made of until you fall apart. I don’t trust anyone who hasn’t had their heart broken,” she says. “If you can push through the moment you have previously identified as the worst possible thing that could happen to you, whether that is divorce or the internet hating you or whatever, you are forged into something way better than you could have possibly imagined.”
She drove to Big Sur, climbed mountains in Bhutan, spent time in Ireland, and explored the up-country hippie towns of Maui, often alone. “I tell my female friends to take themselves on road trips. You meet strangers. You introduce yourself as who you are,” says Wilde, who adds that she got back to “baseline” by interacting with people who didn’t recognize her at all. Wilde’s only constant during this period was time with her kids, Daisy, 9, and Otis, 12, whom she shares with her ex, Ted Lasso star and co-creator Jason Sudeikis. “We’re very, very, very different people who are certainly much better as friends and co-parents,” Wilde says matter-of-factly of Sudeikis. The children alternate weeks between Mom and Dad, and according to her, the arrangement is “flexible and fluid.” Wilde recently gave up one of her days with Daisy so her daughter could watch a soccer match in the Brooklyn bar FancyFree with her dad. “Jason sent me a picture of her sitting with Spike Lee and Mayor Mamdani, two people I revere. I was like, ‘Fuck, yeah!’”
LORO PIANA Jumpsuit, at loropiana.com. TOD’S Scarf, at tods.com. Shoes talent’s own.
Photo: Chloe Chippendale
Otis recently thanked her in a Mother’s Day card for “just being so cool and chill.” She gets the subtext: “I’m the easy parent.” (Wilde let her son stay home from school on the afternoon of our interview because he looked at her like he really needed it.) That softness is a course correction from her own upbringing. Wilde—whose last name was Cockburn (she changed it when she was 18)—grew up a middle child in New York City, then Washington, D.C. Her parents are both award-winning investigative journalists, authors, and war documentarians. The political writer Christopher Hitchens was a babysitter. “My mom was successful in a very male-dominated world so she was brave and intrepid, and she modeled those qualities for me,” Wilde says. But she doesn’t feel the need to teach her kids to be tough. “The world will take care of that,” she says. “I want to be a home base of love and unconditional acceptance.” She laughs about how that attitude plays out in day-to-day life: “I support every passing interest. I’m like, ‘Yes! The circus sounds like a fantastic career!’”
SAINT LAURENT Jacket and Pants, at ysl.com. THE ARCHIVE X YANA Bow Tie and Brooch, at thearchivexyana.com. WING & WEFT Gloves, at wegloveyou.com. HAGELSTAM Shoes, at hagelstam.com.
Photo: Chloe Chippendale
Her approach to her own art is similarly lacking in pretension. When we head to the nearby Leica Gallery to admire a display of vintage German cameras—Wilde splurged on her own Leica M6 a few years ago—and check out the current photo exhibits, we both joke we mostly love art museums for the gift shops: “It’s like you should just start there, right?” she says, laughing.
When Wilde was 19, she got hitched in a school bus to an Italian prince named Tao Ruspoli. “That was a completely romantic and optimistic and adventurous expression of my youth,” says Wilde, who was accepted into Bard but bypassed college to move to L.A. She theorizes that being married in her 20s actually helped her career and freed her from romantic drama. “I probably got so much work done because I didn’t have to deal with the mental workload of dating.”
Wilde started out right after high school as an assistant to casting director Mali Finn, who’s credited with putting Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic. When she was 20 years old, she auditioned and landed the role of the bisexual bad girl Alex Kelly who worked in the music venue the Bait Shop on The O.C. in 2004 and a recurring role as a bi-MD on House followed. She acted in some movies too—and divorced the prince by the early 2010s.
In April, an unflattering red-carpet photo taken at the San Francisco International Film Festival began circulating online. People compared her to a Lord of the Rings villain and threw around Ozempic allegations. Wilde and her younger brother Charlie decided to address the ruckus after a few glasses of wine. “It was a terrible image. I did look like Gollum,” she says to me now. But it was conservative commentator Megyn Kelly’s on-air mean-girl barb—“She looks like a corpse”—that drove Wilde to directly confront the criticism on Instagram and declare, “I’m not dead!”
It wasn’t the first time she poked fun at her public image. Last year, Rogen cast Wilde as a crazy, controlling version of herself in an episode of his Apple TV series, The Studio. “Olivia was coming off this somewhat public debacle, so it seemed like an opportunity for her to make fun of herself,” the comedian tells me. “Historically, I find that sort of clears the air.”
Her starring role in I Want Your Sex—which comes out a month after The Invite—is similarly outré. Wilde plays a manipulative, horny artist who wears latex like a second skin and seduces a young, earnest Cooper Hoffman (Licorice Pizza). Director Gregg Araki told the actress up front, “This is a role for somebody who doesn’t give a fuck. We have to be completely fearless and not worry that she’s unsympathetic.” (Wilde was game. “That’s exactly what I want to do right now,” she told him.)
ALTUZARRA Shirt and Skirt, at altuzarra.com. TIFFANY & CO. Necklace and Earrings, at tiffany.com. HAGELSTAM Shoes, at hagelstam.com.
Photo: Chloe Chippendale
The risqué role feels like a middle finger to the characterization of her as a sexed-up cougar sleeping with a younger man. “It’s so camp, and it was an opportunity to laugh at not only different sides of my personality but at archetypes of women,” says Wilde, who welcomes any likeness to the lead. Araki tells me, “Olivia is like an old-school movie star from the 1940s with presence, like Ingrid Bergman. She’s not one of those actresses who has to wait for the phone to ring because she also has a huge directing career. She’s a double threat, which gives her the ability to be audacious.” I ask if she’s concerned the press will pester her about Styles as she promotes both projects this summer. “It would make me very sad if yet another project I put so much work into was eclipsed by that,” she says. “It would feel really frustrating and yet nothing would surprise me from the media at this point.”
Wilde, who once used to feel insecure about the fact that she didn’t go to film school, now sees her life experiences as higher education. She’s shared her newfound wisdom about public opinion with her kids when they talk about being bullied: “I do worry about them Googling me, but I want them to know that it’s all just noise.” (Otis and Daisy don’t have cell phones. Wilde would like to make them hold off until they turn 16.) Soon, she’ll start directing another film she describes as “heartbreaking” and “hilarious.”
GIORGIO ARMANI Jacket, Shirt, Pants, Tie, Belt, and Shoes, at armani.com. CARTIER Earrings, Brooch, and Rings, at cartier.com.
Photo: Chloe Chippendale
Since late last year, Wilde has been spotted with art dealer Caspar Jopling, in London. She’s been cautious about how to refer to her relationship in public. “When you’re with someone who’s not in the entertainment industry or isn’t a public figure, I have a sense of, I want to protect this person as much as I can.” But she’s excited. “I’m in a really lovely relationship now. I adore him, and I feel completely whole and intact as a person,” says Wilde, flashing a grin. “I think it’s only possible after spending a couple years alone. If you haven’t ever been single for a few years, how do you even know who you are?”
FENDI Jacket, Vest, and Pants, at fendi.com. VAN CLEEF & ARPELS Earrings (worn as brooch), at vancleefarpels.com. KHAITE Shoes, at khaite.com.
Photo: Chloe Chippendale
Production Credits
-
Photography by
Chloe Chippendale -
Styling by
Jessica Willis -
Photo Assistants:
Steven Perilloux and Sam Zvibleman -
Hair by
Mark Townsend -
Makeup by
Lilly Pollan -
Manicure by
Kimmie Kyees -
Styling Assistants:
Antonina Getmanova, Lauren Marron, Liv Vitale, and Cole Norton -
Hair Assistant:
Sal Hernandez Argueta -
Set Design by
Robert Doran -
Set Design Assistant:
Brent Worcester -
Tailoring by
Susie Kourinian -
Production by
Kindly Productions -
The Cut, Editor-in-Chief
Lindsay Peoples -
The Cut, Photo Director
Noelle Lacombe -
The Cut, Deputy Culture Editor
Brooke Marine -
The Cut, Fashion Market Editor
Emma Oleck -
The Cut, Photo Editor
Sofía Mareque
Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism.
If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the June 29, 2026, issue of
New York Magazine.
Want more stories like this one? Subscribe now
to support our journalism and get unlimited access to our coverage.
If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the June 29, 2026, issue of
New York Magazine.
