Olivia Wilde kinda sorta addresses Shia LaBeouf, Florence Pugh, and all the Don’t Worry Darling drama
The director continues to insist talk of on-set tensions is "baseless rumors and gossip"
Aux News Olivia Wilde
Don’t Worry Darling has given us unparalleled Hollywood drama to keep us warm through the long, cold, winter months. While there have already been many press cycles worth of rumors, it all came to a cataclysmic head at the Venice Film Festival—and the aftershocks are still being felt. So much so that a new profile of Olivia Wilde in Vanity Fair had to play catch up just to stay current with the latest updates of the story. (TLDR: She doesn’t give away much.)
First, there’s the elephant in the room–Shia LaBeouf. In an ironic twist, Wilde’s chat with Vanity Fair in July (when the original interview took place) was the most explicit about the press story she was running with in regards to his role: the director claimed “Pugh told her that she was uncomfortable with LaBeouf’s behavior,” so she fired him, adding, “My responsibility was towards her. I’m like a mother wolf. Making the call was tricky, but in a way he understood. … He comes at his work with an intensity that can be combative. It wasn’t the ethos that I demand in my productions.” Regarding the accusations in the actor’s personal life, she even added, “It’s easy to fire someone compared to coming out and talking about abuse.”
Of course, that conversation came before LaBeouf’s infamous email and the release of the “Miss Flo” video, which made it seem like Wilde didn’t fire him at all. In a statement to the outlet afterward, she told Vanity Fair, “This issue is so much more nuanced than can be explained in private texts released out of context. All I’ll say is he was replaced, and there was no going forward with him. I wish him the best in his recovery.” He certainly was replaced, but that doesn’t necessarily equal a firing. Meanwhile, a source suggested to the outlet that “to spare LaBeouf’s ego, [Wilde] seems to have allowed him to believe what he wanted to believe: that he was quitting.” Sure!
As for the reported on-set tensions between Wilde and Pugh, the director insisted they “worked very well together,” attributing Pugh’s lack of promotion for DWD to being “one of the most in-demand actresses in the universe.” “I didn’t hire her to post. I hired her to act. She fulfilled every single expectation I had of her. That’s all that matters to me,” said Wilde.
However, even her own description of their working relationship implied distance: “My tendency is to be everyone’s best friend and to socialize, and I think she often just needed the time and space to focus, so the way I supported her was to give her space and to be there if she needed anything. Florence was very focused on turning out that performance, which I can assure you took all of her energy.”
She also denied being “distracted by anything” on set (read: her relationship with Harry Styles, which she further denied overlapping with her relationship with Jason Sudeikis). This was supported by cinematographer Matthew Libatique, who told Vanity Fair, “It was one of the most harmonious sets I’ve ever been on, and I’m in the middle of the storm.”
In her post-Venice email, Wilde valiantly described the experience as a “fantasy coming true” despite a source telling Vanity Fair “that, privately, Wilde was crushed by what went on at the festival.” Despite the avoidance between director and star and Pugh’s team’s pointed embrace of the title “Miss Flo,” Wilde still made an attempt to calm the waters: “Florence’s performance in this film is astounding. It’s just baffling to me that the media would rather focus on baseless rumors and gossip, thereby overshadowing her profound talent. She deserves more than that. As does the movie, and everyone who worked so hard on it.” But try as we might to appeal to our better angels, we still can’t get enough!
48 Comments
The amount of digital ink spilled over this could fill every swimming pool in America.
Unparalleled. k
This story has been milked so hard there’s nothing left.
There was never anything there to start with, so can there now be less than nothing left? Sort of a conundrum. Kudos to the av club for going through the looking glass on this “story”
You just gotta ‘Go with the Flo’!
Wow, she has an elephant named Shia LaBeouf?
What a coincidence! Maybe that’s why she cast him in the first place.
Might’ve been better off with the elephant. I bet its “process” was much less intensely combative.
“ It’s just baffling to me that the media would rather focus on baseless rumors and gossip”
What turnip truck did you just fall off?
That’s the face when you smell that the milk is sour…and you’ve already poured it on your cereal.
Pretty much how most of us feel about this movie that’s not even out yet.
Olivia Wilde always looks tremendously pleased with herself. Which I’m sure she is.
Well it’s about time SOMEBODY fucking talks about this.
If this movie doesn’t do well at the box office, will they call it a FloP?
Oh for fuck’s sake.
At this point, Styles and Pugh could be on my front porch, actually fucking while Wilde holds the camera and I wouldn’t go out to watch.
You are a better man than me then.
I’m not saying I wouldn’t invite Pugh in and tell Styles to pound sand… I’m just saying I wouldn’t watch them.
I’d not only watch, I’d try and jump in, Eiffel Tower style, baby!
Script is trash. Don’t know why they bothered.
Do we know what the disappointing twist is all the reviews keep mentioning? I think I’m fine having this one spoiled…
Yes. There is, actually, something to worry about after all.
The title’s lack of punctuation?
That’s usually what scathing reviews are for, you’ll often find a critic who hates a movie so much that they stop giving a shit and spoil everything.
Back in the days before spoilers warnings were a thing, my favorite newspaper’s main reviewer, Jack Mathews, used to do this as his ultimate mark of contempt for a movie. Always annoyed the daylights out of me, just for how incredibly petty it was.
Please stop. I’ll give you money
“I’m like a mother wolf.”“Uh we have video of you-”“Mother. Wolf.”
You’ve really got to hand it to Flo/Olivia for taking this movie nobody would have remembered and turning it into a huge spectacle, two weeks still before it opens. Brilliant marketing.
Yeah I was wondering who was in charge of that. Or who was supplementing and helping guide it with armies of influencers and well-timed releases. Back when we had investigative journalism, it might’ve been fun to look at the folks involved.Ah the Sweet Smell of Success!
The weird thing for me in this story is that there doesn’t seem to be too much of an issue about Wilde giving her boyfriend a major role in the movie. Its just strange that the whole casting couch thing is obviously bad, since it forces people to do something they might not want to do in order to work. But I think it is also bad since it means the best possible actor is not getting the role, instead it goes to the one willing to do it with the director/producer/whoever. But in that regard, giving a role to someone you are already sleeping with is kind of the same thing.
I thought the specific issue is that they started sleeping together *during* production…but I also only know what I’ve seen on the AVC.
It is also my understanding that their relationship began on the movie set.
The weird thing for me in this story is that there doesn’t seem to be too much of an issue about Wilde giving her boyfriend a major role in the movie.If anything, there doesn’t appear to have been much clamoring for the role once Shia left.
Sure, it would suck if plenty of good actors were skipped over because Olivia wakes up next to Harry every morning, but by now, with all of this, we would’ve heard from another actor (or many) who were in the running for the role and didn’t get it. It’s not like Olivia has a bunch of clout in the industry as a director to shut those types of stories down (this one sure hasn’t been extirpated), so it seems like she wanted Shia, got Shia, Shia dipped, and she didn’t want to wait around to find someone else to fill the role.
Considering there are deadlines and financial concerns, waiting around can be a very expensive proposition, and choosing someone nearby who you trust (and can have the secondary benefit of bringing eyes to the picture that you wouldn’t otherwise get) is more commonplace than you think. So while I do think that their intimate relationship played a role, I can’t discount or eliminate entirely the possibility that this wasn’t an in-demand role to get, and Wilde along with the producers and financiers simply needed somebody to take the role so they could get filming and have a release by festival season.
The weird thing for me in this story is that there doesn’t seem to be too much of an issue about Wilde giving her boyfriend a major role in the movie.If anything, there doesn’t appear to have been much clamoring for the role once Shia left.
Sure, it would suck if plenty of good actors were skipped over because Olivia wakes up next to Harry every morning, but by now, with all of this, we would’ve heard from another actor (or many) who were in the running for the role and didn’t get it. It’s not like Olivia has a bunch of clout in the industry as a director to shut those types of stories down (this one sure hasn’t been extirpated), so it seems like she wanted Shia, got Shia, Shia dipped, and she didn’t want to wait around to find someone else to fill the role.
Considering there are deadlines and financial concerns, waiting around can be a very expensive proposition, and choosing someone nearby who you trust (and can have the secondary benefit of bringing eyes to the picture that you wouldn’t otherwise get) is more commonplace than you think. So while I do think that their intimate relationship played a role, I can’t discount or eliminate entirely the possibility that this wasn’t an in-demand role to get, and Wilde along with the producers and financiers simply needed somebody to take the role so they could get filming and have a release by festival season.
If it wasn’t for giving a role to someone you’re sleeping with the world would never know the acting genius of Sheri Moon Zombie.
Like…does Rob Zombie not know? Does she not know? I appreciate her enthusiasm and good intentions and probably her love for the craft but…
If you read your history you would know the role was written for Harry who was unavailable until COVID hit. Then he was available. Combine that with Shia the Wolf Baine doing his toxic thing you have snagging (allegedy). Olivia is kind of a dried out old hag. Who would share that? A Q trying to hide? See you Harry!
Anybody else feel like Darling might be starting to get worried?
Well…don’t.
Too late, Darling worry engaged:
He’s fine. He’s got his stick.
“It’s just baffling to me that the media would rather focus on baseless rumors and gossip…”That is “baffling” to her? “It’s just baffling to me that people start moving when the light turns green.”
Don’t worry darling, I am not going to see this goddamn movie no matter how much you continue to shove it down our throats.
Honest question, would this site be so concerned about “the drama” of an actor not doing press for this movie if it was directed by, I don’t know, Peter Berg instead of Olivia Wilde?This is starting to feel like a sexist cat fight narrative.
Is the actor not doing press because Peter Berg started sleeping with Harry Styles? Because I feel like that would get a lot of attention.
It has turned into a gossip rag.
the director claimed “Pugh told her that she was uncomfortable with LaBeouf’s behavior,” so she fired himThe recently published text message chains between Pugh and LaBeouf certainly didn’t indicate this.