VENICE, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 05: Nick Kroll, Florence Pugh, Chris Pine, Olivia Wilde, Sydney Chandler, Harry Styles and Gemma Chan attend the "Don't Worry Darling" red carpet at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 05, 2022 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images)
Olivia Wilde isn’t the first Hollywood director to start a romance with the star of their new film, but she’s a woman in a still male-dominated industry, and her new boyfriend, Harry Styles, the male lead of her sophomore project, “Don’t Worry Darling,” is one of the most desirable pop stars in the world.
As had been widely reported, Wilde’s movie has been plagued by off-screen drama involving Wilde’s ex-fiancé, Jason Sudeikis, her leading lady, Florence Pugh, and troubled actor Shia LaBeouf. As if the PR struggles for Wilde couldn’t get worse, all hell broke loose at “Don’t Worry Darling’s” gala premiere at the Venice Film Festival, with Styles’ and Chris Pine’s “#SpitGate,” among other mini-scandals.
A film industry insider told Page Six that Wilde’s fledging director’s career could be hurt by “credibility problems going forward.” Another industry expert, Matthew Belloni, from the newsletter The Puck, also lamented that Wilde, an exciting new filmmaker, “had suddenly turned the press for her own movie into a snakepit of tabloid headlines and social media bile.”
Belloni and others question whether all these headlines are necessarily Wilde’s fault, and whether sexism is at the root of some of them.
“Wilde is being attacked online, pitted against other women, criticized for dating the super popular star of her own movie, and altogether held to a different standard than her male peers, many of whom did all the same things she’s done, right?” Belloni wrote.
Over at The Ankler, editorial director Richard Rushfield offered a partial list of all the male director/leading lady relationships, many of which began while the director was married. The list includes James Cameron and Linda Hamilton, Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw, Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, Peter Bogdanovich and Cybill Shepherd, Joel Coen and Frances McDormand, and Sam Mendes and Kate Winslet.
“Shall I go on?” Rushfield asked, while similarly noting that Wilde stood out “as one of the brightest lights” in a new era where Hollywood is wanting to embrace, promote and fund the projects of up-and-coming female directors.
After Wilde’s “very solid, engaging debut” with the 2019 coming-of-age comedy, “Booksmart,” great things were expected, Rushfield wrote. “The bidding war for ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ was about as hot as the market for a small dramatic film could get in this day and age.”
Now “Don’t Worry Darling” is being treated “like a tabloid laughing stock,” Rushfield said, and the film’s prospects, along with Wilde’s reputation, may not be helped by its less-than-positive reviews coming out of Venice.
Critics mostly praised the film’s stylish look and Pugh’s performance, but Wilde’s take on the “trouble-in-paradise thriller,” with her “feints at subversion,” resulted “in a disappointingly heavy thud of a movie,” the Los Angeles Times’ Justin Chang said. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called “Don’t Worry Darling” a “hammily acted, laborious and derivative mystery chiller.”
If the reviews were good, “Don’t Worry Darling” might have a chance to get people to focus away from the off-screen drama, which reportedly started when Wilde began a relationship with Styles during production. This affair may or may not have been a factor in Wilde’s breakup from Sudeikis, the father of her two children. Belloni also reported that Wilde’s focus on her new boyfriend bothered Pugh, while others on set said the romance also “annoyed” others because the couple weren’t always available on set when they needed to be.
Pugh refused to do any more press for “Don’t Worry Darling” than necessary, reports said. At the premiere, the actor, resplendent in sparkling Valentino gown, appeared to avoid eye contact with Wilde and made sure to sit several seats away from Wilde and Styles, the Hollywood Reporter said.
The internet also was abuzz with another distraction from the premiere: A video that seemed to show Styles spit in Pine’s hand. “#SpitGate” became such a trending topic that Pine’s representative was forced to issue a statement, vehemently denying that the actor was spat upon.
#HarryStyles appears to spit on Chris Pine i won't sleep until i know the truth pic.twitter.com/wLXjIHTYgU
— JZMaclin (@Mac70J) September 6, 2022
Rushfield asked whether the original sin of “Don’t Worry Darling,” Wilde’s romance with Styles, would have even been reported by entertainment outlets if it involved a male director who “was having a somewhat messy divorce” and “a relationship with an actress on his film.” He also argued that trade publications would never have flown a reporter to a film festival “to badger Harrison Ford with questions about whether he was annoyed that Spielberg was paying more attention to Capshaw than to him.”
Rushfield was referring to Monday’s awkward press conference in Venice, at which Wilde shut down questions about the off-screen drama by calling it “noise” and saying “The internet feeds itself. I don’t feel I need to contribute to it.”
Belloni and the insider who spoke to Page Six indicated that the troubles surrounding “Don’t Worry Darling” are not just the result of sexism or Wilde falling in love with Styles. Wilde also is guilty of some “unforced errors” as director, including her “bizarre” interview with Variety, Belloni said.
Among other things, Wilde disparaged Sudeikis to Variety, saying there’s “a reason” she left the relationship. She accused the “Ted Lasso” star of trying to undermine her film by having her publicly served with child custody documents when she was onstage at CinemaCon in April.
Wilde furthermore erred in the way she talked about LaBeouf leaving “Don’t Worry Darling,” to be replaced by Styles as the male lead, Belloni said. She didn’t use the word fired, but said she replaced him to to “protect the cast” from his “combative energy.”
Wilde’s remarks about LaBeouf prompted the often unpredictable actor to defend himself in a way that prompted more viral headlines. LaBeouf, seeking to redeem his reputation following arrests and domestic violence allegations made by his ex-girlfriend, FKA Twigs, shared an email which indicated that he and Wilde mutually agreed to part ways because he and the other actors couldn’t get time to rehearse.
LaBeouf also shared a video online, which has potentially hurt Wilde’s efforts to position herself as a crusading feminist filmmaker. It showed the director beg the actor to return to the project and patronizingly refer to Pugh as “Miss Flo.” Wilde suggested that Pugh may be the one in need of an attitude adjustment by saying this “might be a bit of a wake-up call for Miss Flo.”
SOMEONE HOLD ME BACK
(the video olivia sent shia where she basically begged him to stay on the movie after ADMITTING that she knows shia makes florence uncomfortable) pic.twitter.com/ihlHOQlF6B
— percy
|| who the fuck is gonna stop us? (@percystardust) August 26, 2022
Belloni said it’s an unwritten rule in Hollywood that directors should never talk badly about “the talent.” She also should have known that her comments about Sudeikis or LaBeouf would be a distraction or even backfire and draw attention to the “tabloid stuff she’s supposedly been trying to avoid.”
“The whole point of press interviews — especially when you’re a director looking to be taken seriously — is to promote the work,” Belloni said.
Regarding Wilde’s relationship with Styles and some of her other recent choices, the Page Six insider summed up the professional challenges that lay ahead for the director:
“Having your lead actress not doing press, your former lead-actor exposing you for not telling the truth about him, and (you) entering into a relationship with your replacement lead actor: It all adds up to a trifecta for having credibility problems going forward.”
Originally published at Martha Ross