Actress Olivia Wilde has been dipping her toes into directing over the last few years. She was the director for the 2019 film Booksmart, as well as 2022’s Don’t Worry Darling, which received a five-minute standing ovation, despite mixed reviews. Wilde has two more films on the way that she helmed, and there’s a reason why there’s no shortage of directorial offerings from her.
In an interview with Deadline, Wilde opened up about her place in the entertainment industry as an actor and director. As an actress, Olivia Wilde naturally gravitated toward roles that had some risk attached, and she stated that was why people brought her on to projects, as either an actor or the director. Wilde went on to say this when she looked back on the projects she undertook:
They know that I won’t be afraid, and I think part of that is being willing to not be accepted, being willing to not be celebrated by everyone, being willing to not be loved by everyone. I think a huge problem with our business, around the world I imagine it’s the same, when you conflate filmmaking or acting with fame or with large scale acceptance, you immediately cut off every opportunity to do any risky work. And so I think that it was important to me to never become overly focused on being accepted or loved.
Wilde continued to speak about her time as a director and what her goal is when it comes to making movies on both sides of the camera. The In Time star, when giving her opinion on the responses from critics and moviegoers, was quoted saying:
I’d rather be controversial than boring. You never want to make a movie as a director that people are like, ‘eh, I don’t know, I felt nothing.’ I’d rather people hate it than feel nothing.
It isn’t a secret that films with more thought-provoking topics, or risky storylines that split the room, are shied away from. The industry can be described as trying to appeal to the widest audience, which Wilde herself touched on as the reason for why she started moving towards directing. In the interview, she stated her belief that acting is the only career where experience doesn’t matter. She went so far as to say that the more experience you have, the less valuable you are because public perception is more important. She goes on to say:
At a certain point, I realized I don’t want to have my value deplete at the point where my wisdom and experience is at its apex. I want to be celebrated for my experience, as opposed to some sort of value based on something that is inherently fleeting.
Wilde states that when you are behind the camera, your experience is everything, and the more projects you create and are a part of, the longer of a lifespan you have in the industry. Which is true, you can really express the full range of your capabilities when you’re involved in more projects, and that is better shown when you are the one in control of the camera, and not just in front of it. When moving on to the subject of women and their place in the film industry, Wilde had this to say:
There’s no shortage of talent, only shortage of opportunity. There aren’t less women studying film. There’s less women getting their movies made.
She went on to advocate that when given the chance to make a film, as a woman, it’s exciting because you are the one in control. Wilde stated that this is the chance to change the system rather than adhere to it, and she advocated that this is the time to be the change and not hide from showing something that might not be universally liked. Wilde closed that thought by saying:
Raise women to believe that they are allowed to take up space. They are allowed to be leaders. It’s difficult to run a production, and it’s difficult for men, too, but as women, we’re sort of told that we should, in many ways, just constantly apologize for our existence. And as a director, you can’t do that… I think it’s about success being connected to creating something that is true to the idea that you have an authentic extension of you, not about whether people approve of it.
Currently, Olivia Wilde is the director behind Naughty, a Christmas comedy that Barbie star Margot Robbie is helping fund. Wilde is also set to direct Avengelyne, which is based off of a 1990s comic book character. As mentioned, her film Don’t Worry Darling had mixed reactions and seemed to have drama on and off the screen between cast members, including rumors that Florence Pugh and Wilde had a hard time getting along.
If you’re curious to see Wilde in the role of the director, Don’t Worry Darling is available for streaming with an Amazon Prime VIdeo subscription.