Reviews of Olivia Wilde’s psychological drama “Don’t Worry Darling” premiering at the Venice Film Festival are now out. And while it’s a little too early to land on a consensus (our review is mixed), unless you’ve been living under a rock, the film and the spectacle surrounding it have threatened to become one of the biggest, nosiest dramas of the year. Well, at least online and on social media.
So, what of the rumors of a feud between director Olivia Wilde and her leading lady Florence Pugh who did not attend the press conference but did walk the Venice Film Festival red carpet? When asked to “clear the air” about the seemingly frosty situation between the two of them, Wilde refused to pour gasoline on any of it, instead praising her star.
“Florence is a force,” she said. “We are so grateful she’s able to make it tonight despite being in production on ‘Dune.’ I know, as a director, how disruptive it is to lose an actor even for a day, so I’m very grateful to her and to [‘Dune’ director Denis Villeneuve] for helping us. And we’ll get to celebrate her work tonight. I can’t say how honored I am to have her as our lead. She’s amazing.”
“As for all the endless tabloid gossip and all the noise out there, the Internet feeds itself,” Wilde continued. “I don’t feel the need to contribute; I think it’s sufficiently well-nourished.”
In case you’re unaware, the backstory is that Pugh seemed to dislike how “Don’t Worry Darling” was marketed earlier this year, seemingly annoyed by how much it skewed towards the sex of the picture. That seemed to create a schism that was recently exacerbated thanks to the Shia LaBeouf of it all. LaBeouf was initially cast as the male lead of the movie alongside Pugh.
Wilde contends he was removed from the film while never quite using the words “fired.” LaBeouf insists he quit and then emailed journalists with a litany of supposed evidence, including out-of-context text and a video that Wilde sent to him, seemingly asking him to return to the picture after he quit, apparently proving his initial claim and refuting hers. Worse, in the video, Wilde seems to be scolding Pugh—for what exactly it’s unclear, but rumors that she didn’t want to rehearse (though it was COVID times after all)—and that surely created a further frost between them.
The Shia of it all came up, too, when a journalist from The Hollywood Reporter at the festival asked Wilde to address the LaBeouf situation and his exit from the film. But before she could respond, the question was shut down by moderator Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan. “I think this question has been answered when she talked about the internet,” said Vallan, moving on to the next question.
Welp, that’s the drama for now; seemingly nothing but everything when it comes to “Don’t Worry Darling” and the heated temperature around the film. Wilde handled herself well, but the situation is definitely messy. Let’s just hope critics can separate the noise from the art and objectively weigh in on the film.