Olivia Wilde has denied reports of an alleged “screaming match” between herself and Florence Pugh on the set of Don’t Worry Darling. The 2022 film, which was directed by Wilde, starred Pugh and Harry Styles as married couple Alice and Jack Chambers living a blissful life until Alice begins to realise that things aren’t what they seem.
In September 2022, Vulture reported that an alleged “screaming match” had occurred between Wilde and Pugh, with the publication further claiming that the Midsommar star was upset with Wilde’s absences and “unprofessional” relationship with Styles.
In response to the allegations, 40 personnel who worked on the film issued a statement to People to deny the report, which read: “Any allegations about unprofessional behaviour on the set of Don’t Worry Darling are completely false.
Merrick Morton//Warner Bros.
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“Olivia is an incredible leader and director who was present with and involved in every aspect of production. She ran this set with class and respect for everyone involved.
“There was never a screaming match between our director and anyone, let alone a member of our cast.”
And now, Wilde has also denied the allegations, as well as revealing why she didn’t respond to them at the time. In an interview with The Cut, she said: ““I’ve never had a screaming match on my set. I was never not available on set. I wanted to be like, ‘None of this is true.’
“I was told, ‘Don’t say a f**king word. Just go out there and smile.’ I resent that, but it taught me it’s not the way I want to handle things.”
Warner Bros.
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Adding that Hollywood “has robbed me of my naïveté for sure”, Wilde said that she “deeply hate the feeling of being misunderstood, too”. So she turned to advice that Jennifer Garner gave her over a decade ago when the two starred in 2011’s Butter.
“She said it’s like you get cast in a soap opera by the public. And they assign you an obvious archetype: the damsel in distress, the good girl, the pretty girl. I became the full-on villain. Like Cruella,” Wilde said.
During the press tour for Don’t Worry Darling, a video of Styles supposedly “spitting” on co-star Chris Pine before he sat down went viral, which the singer and Pine’s representatives both denied.
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