Olivia Wilde appeared on The Late Show to address the rumors and ongoing drama surrounding her new film, Don’t Worry Darling. In a lengthy chat with host Stephen Colbert, the director and actress spoke about everything from firing Shia LaBeouf to tension with star Florence Pugh to whether Harry Styles actually spit on Chris Pine.
In regards to the incident in Venice, where a video of Styles apparently spitting on Pine was wildly viral, Colbert asked, “Did Harry Styles spit on Chris Pine? Why or why not? Support your answer.”
“No, he did not,” Wilde replied. “But I think it’s a perfect example of, like, people will look for drama anywhere they can. Harry did not spit on Chris, in fact… He really didn’t.”
She continued, “People can look at a video that shows evidence of someone not spitting on someone else and they’ll still see what they want to see. And that is the creation of drama, and that is clickbait.”
Colbert continued the interview by asking, “So no tension between you and Florence Pugh?”
“I have nothing but respect for Florence’s talent,” Wilde confirmed. “She’s fantastic. She’s on the set of her movie Dune right now, and there’s nothing cooler than a busy actress. I have nothing against her in for any reason.”
The director added that she finds it interesting that none of her fellow male directors are asked similar questions about their casts. Colbert agreed. “These are not questions to be asking a director,” he noted. “They should be talking about the movie itself, but these are the questions that have sort of consumed this movie.” He said that if Wilde was a male director he wouldn’t even have these questions to begin with.
“People would actually be talking about the movie itself,” Wilde agreed, adding of male directors, “They’re praised for being tyrannical. They can be investigated time and time again, it still doesn’t overtake conversations of their actual talent or about the film themselves. This is something we’ve come to expect. It is just very different standards that are created for women and men in the world at large.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Wilde cleared up the perceived drama between herself and LaBeouf, who was originally meant to play Styles’ role in the film. Colbert asked Wilde to explain the situation with LaBeouf.
“Early on in the process of making the film, as the director, I tried to mediate, you know, a situation between people to try to see if they could work together happily,” Wilde explained. “Once it became clear that it was not a tenable working relationship, I was given an ultimatum. I chose my actress, which I’m very happy I did. At the time was I bummed we weren’t able to make it work? Sure. Did information about him come to light later that made me confident we made the right decision? Absolutely.”
“Just to be clear here, did you fire Shia LaBeouf?” Colbert asked.
“We had to replace Shia,” Wilde said. “He is a fantastic actor, but it wasn’t going to work. And, you know, when he gave me the ultimatum of him or Florence, I chose Florence. And that was him feeling he was stepping away and me feeling like we were moving on without him.” She added, “It’s a question of semantics.”
Wilde also discussed the amount of work that went into making the film, as well as playing the character of a 1950s housewife.
Don’t Worry Darling, in theaters this week, is a psychological thriller surrounding a 1950s housewife (Pugh) whose picture-perfect life is not what it seems. It marks Wilde’s second time in the director’s chair, following her acclaimed 2019 directorial debut Booksmart.
Wilde recently addressed several of the rumors surrounding the film in an interview with Vanity Fair, including whether she left her long-time partner and former fiancé, Jason Sudeikis, for Styles.
“The complete horseshit idea that I left Jason for Harry is completely inaccurate,” she told Vanity Fair. “Our relationship was over long before I met Harry. Like any relationship that ends, it doesn’t end overnight. Unfortunately, Jason and I had a very bumpy road, and we officially dissolved the relationship towards the beginning of the pandemic. We were raising two kids during lockdown, so we co-parented through that time. Once it became clear that cohabitating was no longer beneficial for the children, it became the responsible thing to not, because we could be better parents as friends who live in different houses.”
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