Now that the furor of behind-the-scenes Don’t Worry Darling drama has died down, director Olivia Wilde is speaking out against how she felt the media treated her film. In a blunt feature at Elle, the filmmaker has sharp words about the soap opera swamp her movie found itself in with many media outlets focusing on her rumored affair with Harry Styles, rumored feud with star Florence Pugh, and the reduction of the movie down to its sexy sequences.
“It is shocking to see so many untruths about yourself traded as fact,” Wilde said. “Florence had a really wise comment that we didn’t sign up for a reality show. And I love that she put it that way, because it’s as though the general public feels that if you are making something that you’re selling to the public, you somehow have accepted that your life will be torn to shreds by a pack of wolves. No, that’s actually not part of the job description. Never was.”
There’s no doubt this is a complicated, complex situation because, as Hunter Harris pointed out, the call was coming from inside the house, but…Wilde is also right. Wilde and the film’s PR team put a lot of emphasis on the movie’s sex scenes as a vehicle for female pleasure that’s not often seen, but many outlets placed an outsized focus on them while forgetting about the rest of the movie. Wilde is also experiencing a press tour that, despite plenty of drama on sets, most male directors simply don’t receive — whether because they aren’t already a part of the gossip economy or because bludgeoning James Cameron with questions about flirting with Linda Hamilton during the Terminator 2 press junket was never going to be a thing.
Giving full credit to all the catalysts, here’s hoping the press junket ride for Wilde’s upcoming Kerri Strug biopic Perfect isn’t so rocky.
(via Elle)