Olivia Wilde will not be silenced again after the media storm surrounding “Don’t Worry Darling.” The actor-director dispelled rumors that she and Florence Pugh had a screaming match on set in an interview published Wednesday.
Speaking with The Cut, “The Invite” director said she wanted to pursue her press tour differently for her third feature film, taking control of the narrative after feeling misunderstood during the “Don’t Worry Darling” rollout.
“I was told, ‘Don’t say a f–king word. Just go out there and smile,’” Wilde recalled. “I resent that, but it taught me it’s not the way I want to handle things.”
After its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, “Don’t Worry Darling” faced heightened scrutiny, especially after Wilde’s relationship with the film’s star Harry Styles became public. There was also speculation about Wilde’s professionalism on set.
Reports ahead of the film’s release said that Pugh had become “fed up with the director’s frequent unexplained absences” and that the two women had a blowout argument late into production on the film. Wilde denied all of those allegations Wednesday.
“I have never had a screaming match on my set. I was never not available on set,” she said. “I wanted to be like, ‘None of this is true.’”
Pugh allegedly made contact with the film’s distributor New Line Cinema to ensure that she would not have to “participate in the film’s life cycle in any way.” Several members of Wilde’s crew came to her defense during that time, denying that the incident took place and praising the director for her dedication to the project.
“I deeply hate the feeling of being misunderstood,” Wilde told The Cut.
The director went on to clarify that in her early career, she felt put in a box as audience’s “object of desire.” Post-“Don’t Worry Darling” and entering her 40s, she felt an immense shift.
“I became the full-on villain. Like Cruella,” she said.
Wilde also recently addressed her intentional break from the public eye with Alex Cooper on “Call Her Daddy.” She described that time as the most disconnected she has ever felt from her public perception and reality.
“It was also very strange to see complete fiction traded as fact,” Wilde said. “I wanted to be like, ‘Can I just talk to people?’ Can I just go and say like, ‘That’s not true?’ And it was like, ‘No, that won’t help.’ And that was really hard.”
