Olivia Wilde covers the latest issue of Variety, which is a preview of the Venice Film Festival. Don’t Worry Darling, Wilde’s second directorial feature film, will premiere in Venice. This interview is actually something of a “get” for Variety – this is the first time Olivia has spoken about hiring Harry Styles for DWD, about the rumors of a feud with Florence Pugh and about Jason Sudeikis sending a process server to CinemaCon to serve Olivia with papers dealing with custody of their two children. Olivia says many of the right things about feminism, about white feminism, about the ingrained bias against women in Hollywood. I still feel like something is slightly “off” about… a few things. She doesn’t really address the Pugh rumors head on (and Pugh notably did not offer quotes for this profile) but she does compliment Pugh and her performance. She complains about internet gossip ten minutes after she refers to being served as “vicious” and “sabotage.” Dramatique! Some highlights from this Variety story:
Being served with custody papers at CinemaCon: “It was my workplace. In any other workplace, it would be seen as an attack. It was really upsetting. It shouldn’t have been able to happen. There was a huge breach in security, which is really scary. The hurdles that you had to jump through to get into that room with several badges, plus special COVID tests that had to be taken days in advance, which gave you wristbands that were necessary to gain access to the event — this was something that required forethought.”
She carried on with her presentation after being served: “I hated that this nastiness distracted from the work of so many different people and the studio that I was up there representing. To try to sabotage that was really vicious. But I had a job to do; I’m not easily distracted. But, you know, sadly, it was not something that was entirely surprising to me. I mean, there’s a reason I left that relationship.”
The children suffered because she was served? “The only people who suffered were my kids, because they’ll have to see that, and they shouldn’t ever have to know that happened. For me, it was appalling, but the victims were an 8- and 5-year-old, and that’s really sad. I chose to become an actress; I willingly walked into the spotlight. But it’s not something my children have asked for. And when my kids are dragged into it, it’s deeply painful.”
Her children: When Wilde is with her children, she’s entirely with her children, she says. She makes breakfast every morning, never misses bedtime and takes them to school herself. “They are my world. They are my best friends.”
The story of ‘Don’t Worry Darling’: “I was looking for a way to tell a story about what happens when someone is willing to sacrifice a system that serves them in order to do the right thing. I was also thinking a lot about my place in society as someone who could rage against the patriarchy but in many ways totally benefits from it. Science fiction has a long history in film of allowing for political issues to be spoken out through entertaining narratives,” she says. “I don’t enjoy or feel inspired by stories that oversimplify feminism. It’s so much more complicated.” At the same time, Wilde didn’t want her next film to feel in any way “preachy.”
Hiring Florence Pugh for the lead role: “I had been blown the f–k away by her. I loved the film, but I loved her. I was just like, ‘Well, she’s extraordinary. She’s clearly the most exciting young actress working today.’”
The report that Harry Styles was paid three times more than Pugh: Wilde denies that, saying in an email later, “There has been a lot out there that I largely don’t pay attention to. But the absurdity of invented clickbait and subsequent reaction regarding a nonexistent pay disparity between our lead and supporting actors really upset me. I’m a woman who has been in this business for over 20 years, and it’s something that I have fought for myself and others, especially being a director. There is absolutely no validity to those claims.” Beyond that, neither Wilde nor Pugh has bothered to comment on the tabloid-driven feud.
On her relationship with Styles: “I’m not going to say anything about it because I’ve never seen a relationship benefit from being dragged into the public arena. We both go out of our way to protect our relationship; I think it’s out of experience, but also just out of deep love.”
Celebrity gossip: “The whole culture of celebrity gossip is interesting as a distracting tool to numb people from the greater pains of the world. Escapism is really a very human quality, searching for something to anesthetize the painful reality of so many people’s lives. I don’t blame people for seeking escapism, but I think the tabloid media is a tool to pit women against one another and to shame them.”
Wilde has felt her privacy violated. “The last two years, my family has gone through this kind of restructuring and a revolution that should be a totally personal experience. And it’s not. The most painful element of it has been women shaming me for making a decision that was for my own health and happiness.”
“In any other workplace, it would be seen as an attack” – but not really? Process servers go to people’s offices all the time. Sometimes people prefer to be served in an office as opposed to their home or airport or what have you. I get that it was embarrassing for her, I get that it was rude and awful. But I’m still not entirely convinced (as she is) that Jason Sudeikis intentionally set up this situation to have Olivia served on stage. I also still wonder if Olivia had been dodging the server for a while too. Additionally, I don’t get why… being served on stage at CinemaCon was about her children? Yes, the actual custodial issue was about the kids, but the act of being served wasn’t some drag on the kids? Am I crazy or is she going way overboard about this?
As for the stuff about Pugh… the promotion is definitely going to be interesting, because Florence is not lifting a finger to promote this movie any more than she’s contractually obligated to. The Venice premiere is going to be fascinating. And honestly, that will help the movie a bit too.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Getty, cover courtesy of Variety.
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- Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis attending the 2018 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on March 4, 2018 in Beverly Hills, California. | Verwendung weltweit,Image: 534913541, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: UK and US ONLY – DIRECT SALES ONLY – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: Regina Wagner/Geisler-Fotopress / DPA Picture Alliance / Avalon
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- Olivia Wilde attends the Vanity Fair Oscar Party at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, USA, on 09 February 2020. | usage worldwide,Image: 563531638, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: UK and US ONLY – DIRECT SALES ONLY – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: Hubert Boesl / DPA Picture Alliance / Avalon
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- LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – NOVEMBER 06: Actress Olivia Wilde wearing a Gucci dress arrives at the 10th Annual LACMA Art + Film Gala 2021 held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on November 6, 2021 in Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 642004404, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Olivia Wilde, Credit line: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
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- LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA – NOVEMBER 06: Actress Olivia Wilde wearing a Gucci dress arrives at the 10th Annual LACMA Art + Film Gala 2021 held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on November 6, 2021 in Los Angeles, California, United States.,Image: 642004435, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Olivia Wilde, Credit line: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon
Thank you for your reasonable take on this. People get served at their work ALL. THE. TIME. It’s embarrassing. But it isn’t a vicious attack that only she has ever endured that is tantamount to abuse.
That, along with other quotes, show that either she is desperately trying to paint herself as a victim, or she just legitimately doesn’t understand how family court works.
You’re in a custody battle. It sucks. But you ain’t the first.
Just say you were embarrassed and move on. I find it hard to believe that she didn’t know she was going to get served. I think she’s mad because she thought she was going to be able to take those kids and move to England and he wasn’t going to do anything. Either she knows the custody issue is not going to go the way she thinks it will or this whole situation is causing issues in her relationship. Here she is talking about her kids are going to see this. Well they are also going to see you trashing their father. She really needs to grow up.
If (and it’s if) she thinks she could move to London with the kids she needs to give Halle Berry a call. Halle Berry who wanted to move her daughter from Los Angeles to Paris with her new baby and partner…Halle Berry who alleged her daughter’s father made numerous racist statements…Halle Berry who remained and still remains in Los Angeles cause the family court said no and also no?
I can’t imagine she really thought that was an option and if she did her legal team needs to talk sense into her.
Another thing is… would anyone KNOW those papers were about the kids if SHE didn’t bring it up? Seems to me SHE is the one that keeps bringing/mentioning her kids in all this. THIS is what they’ll read about: their MOTHER dragging them through all these interviews.
I have no dog in this fight. While I love THE SHOW Ted Lasso, I also know JS can be a major douche. OW is also known to be a major PITA, esp. with exes. Neither one is scoring points here, but at least JS isn’t talking about it every time he opens his mouth.
#TeamKids. Parents in custody fights should have an automatic gag order on public comments regarding kids.
It was also pointed out that the only way anyone knew she was being served was that she or someone close to her leaked it; apparently at first everyone thought she was just being given a script.
THANK YOU! I don’t think enough people are talking about that point. No one would know what was in that envelope unless it was leaked to the press. I wasn’t sure who leaked it until now. Her comments trying to paint herself as a victim about it, while claiming that she doesn’t want to comment about her relationships when asked about Styles shows 2 things: 1. her camp leaked the info and 2. she’s a hypocrite wanting to talk about one relationship but not the other. Because then she’d have to answer questions about the dicey dynamic of a director getting together with a much younger actor on the set.
@MissMarieRose, that is the exact comment I was coming here to write!
Every time Olivia opens her mouth and speaks about the ongoing custody issues she does herself no favors. Same thing with the Florence Pugh drama. I think she really, really is so above all of us that she doesn’t grasp how she appears to the general public, even though she assumes she has our sympathy. Her privilege is blinding her. Jason, with his Aw shucks persona and the goodwill of Ted Lasso, is definitely winning the PR game. She, however, can’t see beyond her own righteousness.
It’s kind of funny how she says that she’s “never seen a relationship benefit from being dragged into the public arena” after years of oversharing about Sudeikis. I still remember her weird-ass comment about how they “have sex like Kenyan marathon runners.” Gross.
Also in this process serves defense, I bet celebrities are hard to serve. They are surrounded with more security apparatuses than the rest of us just by nature of being a celebrity.
Why ?
He sat on the papers for 6 months .
They swap the kids over every week. No time to serve her then in the 52 times times he saw her between Oct and April
Im not sure why this story is taking a weird turn? It’s embarrassing for her, but I thought she did great the second after being served. Im over this story, I dont think less of her because of this. The way she explains that it was very well thought out for them to be able to serve her out there, makes me agree that is was vicious, but divorce means war for some I guess.
No one would have known that she was served at work, including her children, if she didn’t discuss it. What hurt her children was it getting into the public sphere so that some rude kid at school can throw it at them.
Olivia is no Angelina.
Pugh saw through her schtick.
I believe there is a difference between being served “at work” and being served, while giving a public presentation at ComicCon in the presence of 100s of people and MEDIA.
I think the difference is stark.
Now, do we know if she had been dodging service? No, we don’t.
But it was a sh*tty thing to do.
I feel like people believe JS is that ted lasso character and that plays into the media coverage and public belief (along with mysogeny), and, he is not.
Also, i believe that two people can differ on when a relationship ended- and neither may be acting in bad faith.
You can be over it, out, and because you are still talking and spending time resolving, the other person can feel the relationship- though teetering on the brink- is still viable.
And i don’t think there’s a bad guy in those situations.
Also when a relationship officially ends- some people need a mourning period- and some, because they checked out of the relationship earlier than the expiration date- are ready from jump.
Again, i don’t think there’s a bad guy there.
This is really telling about the pay gap and seems to confirm that it exists, but classifies Harry as a lead and Florence as supporting (or vice versa): “ But the absurdity of invented clickbait and subsequent reaction regarding a nonexistent pay disparity between our lead and supporting actors really upset me.” Sneaky language that has been workshopped by a lawyer…
People get served at work but it usually doesn’t get plastered all over the internet and industry trades. It was a deliberate attack to publicly embarass her.
She’s beginning to get on my last nerve. The stench of entitlement is becoming a bit much and I am tired of hearing about her, her ex and her boyfriend.
@ Kitten I read that interview. One of the first of the very few Olivia Wilde interviews I read. She dragged on her ex-husband, bemoaned the prior sad state of her lady parts from lack of usage, followed by their leap into hyperdrive when she met JS with them having sex all the time, everywhere. What I got from that the entirety of the interview, was that she was in want of thoughtful circumspection. Some things haven’t changed.
What is the drama with Wilde and Pugh? I honesty must have missed it! *goes to archives*
Me too! Life’s been crazy busy for me lately so I definitely missed this part. Time to get my research hat on.
The specific reason wasn’t shared. The issue is that Pugh generally talks openly about her movies and co stars, but she won’t utter Wilde’s name or anything about her, and that’s a blazing red flag, especially since Olivia is pouring praise and is saying that she fired Shia LeBoeuf to protect Pugh from him.
Or because she has 2 movies coming out on exactly the same day
She has not promoted the Puss in Boots one either
There’s all kinds of speculated reasons. Wilde’s new relationship with Styles made filming awkward. The pay difference rumor that was mentioned in the interview. And the fact that the promotion of this film, which is supposed to be about female empowerment, has boiled down to conversations about Wilde’s messy personal life and the scene where Styles’ character performs oral sex on Pugh’s.
She’s right, getting served on stage took a lot of thought and planning by whoever masterminded it. I don’t think it’s the same thing as someone getting served at their 9 to 5 job. They really had to study/know her schedule and then go through all the security/health clearances.
But she is the one equating it to being served in the workplace which happens all the time. It literally happens to Joan in Mad Men. You serve people where you know they will be. It’s considered more violative to serve people during non business hours at their home.
Wait, the film is about female empowerment? Weird that white male Harry is the lead and everyone else is considered a supporting player. That sounds like same old thing for women.
Agreed. It could have just as easily been handed to her the minute she went offstage. It in no way had to be that public. Which isn’t to say that her ex knew in advance that that was how it would go down, but most work settings don’t get filmed for future distribution to a wider audience.
How exactly was the process server going to get backstage? Because I’ve been to cons. The guests are brought from backstage. This was probably the only chance she had to be up close to Olivia without a phalanx of security.
She was handed an envelope on stage. It could’ve been anything at all, like a script. It’s not like process servers yell out what kind of papers they’re serving. We know that envelope contained custody papers because she leaked it.
I mean, if she’d been served in set it would have been a much less big deal.
She was served in stage giving a presentation for work, with media watching.
Thank you. People might get served at work but this is like getting served at work while you are giving a presentation to a huge board room of people. There’s a difference between being interrupted while sipping your coffee and working on a spreadsheet vs while speaking before an auditorium of people. Come on!
This is Hollywood. These folks are pros at hiding from filings. In a divorce and/or custody situation, you know what’s coming. Hollywood attorneys know everyone in places like this event. They are paid to know so that they can do exactly what happened. Contentious divorces are brutal, and they are worse in the spotlight, but this group makes a LOT of money. Money buys access, peeps.
The event handlers messed up. No one should have had access to the stage at this event, but they thought they had vetted every person in the crowd. But us muggles also have to work these events, so someone is going to slip in. It’s just that those people are usually extra waiters or hangers on and not process servers. There should have been security on each side of the stage. And Olivia is a pro; no one would have known. The process server was a pro: she did her job and walked away.
It was rude, but reasonable people know what custody battles look like. She NOW looks bad, but that’s because she is discussing her dislike of her former partner in the media where her kids can hear about it. She’s also discussing feminism, but there is disagreement about the timeline of her entrance in an “at work” romance while in a committed relationship. She doesn’t understand that it looks like she dumped her ex and family life for a rock star in what appears to be a few months at work. And publicly kissing Florence Pugh’s rear end while Pugh is clearly distancing herself is creepy AF.
I want to root for her in theory, but she can’t seem to see the forest for the trees. She has absolutely no self awareness about how what she is saying to the media will fall on her children. She should keep quiet about her personal life and just own it. She is being judged for having poor judgement in a business that is entirely about appearances.
P.S.: some of my friends in L.A. were process servers used by a bunch of “Hollywood” lawyers, and another owns a process serving business in So Cal.
Unless the server knew someone local who worked for the event space, huge events like that are not Fort Knox like she is implying.
I am curious what she means by “special Covid tests that has to be taken days in advance”. A PCR test like everyone has been taking for going on 2 years now? At a walk-in pop up? Is these some obscure test that were only required for this event? It just seemed like she phrased that a certain way to suggest added danger as if she hadn’t spent half of last fall in arenas at Harry’s shows where only a rapid test was required and tons of people didn’t wear masks. She doesn’t wear masks properly in like half the photos from his shows, she had one pulled down to her chin at his NY show in May for at least part of the time. She went without one at his indoor, small theater show in London the following week. She walked through a crowded restaurant without one last week. She was not in more danger from Covid from the process server than she is the rest of the time.
@Cava 24- That Covid test comment struck me odd as well. So I looked up Cinemacon 2022 Covid protocols and wouldn’t you know it, nothing “special” here:
Proof of vaccination (no booster needed)
OR
Negative PCR or antigen lab-reported test conducted within 48-hours of picking up credentials
If you didn’t have either of those they had on-site testing for results in 30 minutes.
What is she trying to front?! So weird.
You made that point down thread on how she speaks dramatically / misleadingly. That is really interesting background on the Kaufman house location because the way she phrased it, I did read it as being allowed to shoot there was a nod to the prestige of the production/film. Lol.
I don’t think she is saying she was worried about Covid from the server at all. I think she was just saying that a Covid test that would’ve been done a couple of days before the event was necessary in order to get in along with other requirements that you can’t just acquire on the spot.
@ MIA GIRL- thank you, I just looked for that and found it as well after you pointed it out. Anyone could have cleared the Covid hurdle just with a vaccination and given that she travels a ton and has kids enrolled in school, she 100% knows there was nothing special about the Covid requirements or time limiting (“days in advance”).
I agree, she has a right to be pissed. Jason wanted to humiliate her as much as possible. He’s a huge jerk and everybody knows it now. Good luck to whichever dumb woman links up with him after this. If he’ll do this to the mother of his kids, he’ll do worse to you.
As opposed to the man who has to put up with her histrionics and white woman victimhood? She has 💩 on every partner she’s had, even saying her hoo-ha died because of her first husband. She’s a prize, for sure.
See, I don’t know if it did. I feel like if you are a process server and you say that you are there on court business, an ID saying who you are and where you work would probably be enough. I do think someone at CinemaCon fell down in their job to allow her to be served while on stage ( a simple “wait here and you can serve her once she’s off stage” should have happened.)
I’m very interested in what happened that Florence Pugh had distanced herself so far from Olivia and the movie.
@Normades-agreed about it taking a lot more thought and planning than people either realize or they are just ignoring. When this first happened people were saying that they probably saw on SM that day that she was going to be there so that’s where the server went when clearly it wasn’t some last ditch effort to get to her or some last minute plan. Some people mentioned how you had to have some kind of clearance and badge to get that close to the stage but it’s mostly been ignored. It was an event that needed days in order to get access too. I really don’t have a horse in this race because I’m not invested in anyone here but I think it’s unfair to ignore all the planning they had to have gone through in order to purposefully serve her in such public way.
@Erin – up thread I commented that I looked up Covid protocol for the event (I’m sick in bed w a cold and bored, so I have time on my hands for frivolous stuff like this).
Since I was on the Cinemancon 22 site, I also looked up registration and frankly, doesn’t seem as exclusive as it was painted. There were options for non-members to attend and even on-site registration during the event. You just had to pay a lot more. So yes, this could have been premeditated or conceivably, the server could and would have been able to register that very day.
Not sure about any additional access needed to be near stage though… I ended my sleuthing with registration.
The whole thing sucked for Wilde and most of us are pretty sympathetic about it. But, I don’t think it serves her (no pun intended) to dramatize it even more now as she promotes her film.
@ MIA GIRL- lol, so assuming the person was still under their expense cap or if they had totally unofficial but official-looking credentials for process-serving, which I think someone was discussing elsewhere in this thread, like the $40 “process server” badge you can buy online, it would not have been that hard.
Olivia definitely has a point about Jason threatening her via embarrassment but as far as reputational risk goes, she’s her own worst enemy- the call is coming from inside the house.
I think both things can be true – lots of people gets served at work and that doesn’t make her unique. I think it can also be true that 99% of the world getting served at work doesn’t get media coverage and pictures that last forever of the moment your parents marriage ended and your Mom was on stage promoting her first (I think?) directing project and stood there reading the papers because she got caught off guard. I would feel protective too – it should have been more private…if they could jump through all those hoops to serve her at the event, they surely could have served her at her hotel or some where else with the same amount of effort.
Yeh, I agree. I can’t believe people equate performance for work with work. Her job as director is on set and in meetings and crafting before filming. If she’d been served then, no biggie.
Dramatique indeed. I don’t what kind of publicity game this but its embarrassing. Her saying that the kids will “see this one day” is true, but they will also see you taking about it and talking shit about their dad. They both need to be careful of wanting to win the PR awards. I know a lot of people love Jason because of his Ted Lasso show but I’m not a fan. And I remember how Olivia treated/dealt with her last husband. Sha-dy. I hope that the children are happy and that their parents can get past this all.
I do feel like everyone is forgetting how crappy she was to her ex-husband after the divorce, even talking about how he was lacking in bed. She and Jason were that gross couple that over shared and I’m not surprised that they both ended up being jerks. Team Pugh.
Yes but that was different, that wasn’t them being “dragged into the spotlight”, that was her and Jason luging into it.
And just because you do a dozen or more pap walks in your boyfriend’s merch so Vogue and whoever else can write articles about it does not mean you want your relationship “dragged into the spotlight”. 😉
I agree, I don’t blame her for being pissed at the serving situation, but I think for the sake of her kids, they both need to lock this down and truly keep it private. The back and forth in the media is not helping anyone.
My children suffered because I was served publicly so now I’m going to say all sorts of shady things about their father publicly? Eh? Make the math add up please? You’re mad I get it, fair. But side-eyeing the hell out of this whole thing and everyone involved. Eh to hell with it: Team Florence? 😉
Messy divorces are a dime a dozen but the clear issues with Florence interest me. And early word now from screenings seems to be leaning that the movie is pretty, but messy and doesn’t add up. That first clip they released was…meh. I wonder if it’s all just a serious case of creative differences and clashing?
.
I don’t understand why she keeps bringing up the children, especially given the efforts she takes to hide their faces on Instagram. Granted, my son was 3 when his dad and I divorced but we didn’t even talk about it around him, he just learned that on some weekends/holidays/weeks he goes to his dad’s house, but most of the time he is with me. He is 6 now and about 6 months ago I said something about the house his dad and I lived in when he was born, that we brought him home to. The conversation went as follows-
Kid- wait, you and dad LIVED TOGETHER?!
Me- um yes, we were married and lived (there) and then we moved (here) and it didn’t work out so now he lives at his house (with girlfriend whom my son loves) and we live (here)
Kid- Oh, can I watch Number Blocks now?
Kids can bounce back if you don’t make it a huge deal. His dad did some crappy things to me (not abuse) and I could go scorched earth and probably ruin his relationship with his dad, but why would I do that? He didn’t cheat on his kid, he didn’t make his kid hurt emotionally, it was about me, not our son.
She is giving me California Karen vibes.
That headline is so cringe. I can’t believe she okay’d that. It’s kind of embarrassing how much she talks about HS and he has yet to acknowledge even being in a relationship.
She talks about him sooooo MUCH. It’s too much and she’s letting it define her IMO.
Agree. And the fact that she’s following him around all over the world during his international tour, makes her look like a star struck groupie. I don’t dislike her and if she’s his GF, then of course she’s gonna be at his shows. But the optics of their entire relationship just doesn’t look… balanced?
She mentions that she and Jason have a week on/week off schedule in the interview. She was at Coachella to see Harry the Friday before so adjustments would have had to be made to their custody schedule to work out her being in LV the following week. She may have just said she had a work thing. Which is true but she has done CinemaCon before, Jason is also in the business and would be aware of it and would know the studios preview their fall releases so he may have figured out she was going. His statement said they tried to catch her at the hotel but failed. I still have so many questions- since it seems like this came up quickly based on Jason’s statements a few weeks ago, how much time did she have to sign before that? Who did his process server get in touch with on her end beforehand? How were they instructed? “Please, please get this done while she is in LV” is different from “we have time but try to catch her in LV”. Under the applicable laws, he had almost no case for jurisdiction in NY so is the filing itself sort of unnecessary? I assumed when this first came out that he would never intentionally serve her in that way because it is bad for his case but what if he knows he doesn’t have one and the public spectacle of this is meant to embarrass her like he felt embarrassed by her first pap walk with Harry? End of the day, I am team no one, they both kind of suck but it is very interesting how this is playing out.
Unless their editorial process is much different than most magazines, Olivia absolutely did not see that headline or approve it before it hit newsstands.
At least they didn’t go with “Wild About Harry.” Though they could have…and upset the Queen.
@ThatsNotOkay- I now have that song stuck in my head and I’m going to need to watch My Girl tonight.
It’s her right to talk about whatever she wants, but I feel like so much focus on her personal life could detract from what she may accomplish as the director of the film. And to her point, female directors unfortunately have the unfair burden of a lot more to prove. I don’t think this is the right PR strategy.
I’m interested to know if as the Director she asked Styles to work with a dialect coach. There’s a new film clip out and I genuinely have no idea what accent he’s attempting.
I can’t believe that’s the clip they put out to convince people to see the movie lol. someone said it started off football and ended up as soccer, which cracked me up.
I hadn’t seen that one… that’s hilarious!
Did see one that said Styles had watched all of Robert Pattinson’s films and then tried to cram every one of the accents into one scene. 😂
Generally like Styles’ vibe/music but not sure how well he can act. Hope it goes well for him. I think it’s a shame there is so much personal drama around the film. It’s making me less interested in it tbh.
The think with Olivia is that she wants to project that she’s being upfront about things but a lot of what she says in this interview, her Vogue cover interview and kind of everything she does is sort of true but not entirely true. She frames what she says it in a way that would lead you to a particular conclusion that isn’t correct and it is intentionally misleading. A small case in point- she mentioned in a related video that was released yesterday (and I think she mentioned it elsewhere before) that DWD was the first film to shoot in the Kaufmann house in Palm Springs and what a huge honor it was with sort of the implication that it reflected on the worthiness of the film, her cred, whatever. In reality, the Kaufmann house was listed for sale for the first time in over a decade just before filming began in October 2020 and it had very few owners over time before that. And they lived there. So the house was unoccupied at exactly the moment they needed it. It’s still an amazing get by her location manager but she doesn’t mention why it was available, she likes the implication that her project is worthy and she wants people to think that. I mean, they weren’t going to let just anyone shoot anything there (no reality tv, I am sure) but the thing keeping film crews out of there before that changed.
A tad dramatic. She’s not the first or last person to be served at her “job”. Goodness. But any publicity is good publicity, especially when her leading lady ain’t lifting a finger to promote this film. As for whatever went down with her and Florence, it’s definitely something there. This isn’t just tabloid rumor.
it’s the “oh she’s in Budapest filming” so couldn’t give a statement, but then included comments from an email Harry sent. she couldn’t have emailed a statement from Budapest? LOL. especially knowing everyone’s talking about how she’s not engaging with the film or Olivia?
I know Florence recently said she was frustrated by the comments on sex in the movie, and this article starts out with Olivia raving about how it depicts only female orgasms, so I wonder if there’s a dispute on how to market the film.
She’s doing too much about being served. Celebrities have been served at inconvenient times way before her. I did a quick search and an article was written in 2017! (five years before her) about times when celebrities were served: at their WEDDING, at their shoe release, at their own concert, at their birthday party, and when they were at a strip club. This isn’t even to count the time one was served at a funeral. Also, she was given an envelope during a presentation and she makes an effort to open the envelope, pull the paper out, read it (thus allowing a picture to be taken) and then bravely keep on talking? Why not just finish the presentation and then open it back stage? And I’m sure the large majority of everyday citizens who don’t get served at home get served at work: because it’s the most convenient place to reach them!
I side eye Olivia’s woe is me I got served storyline she’s building. My divorce involving a kid & custody was extremely contentious with paperwork getting served but guess what? The process server will first try to contact you directly and ask if there’s a time/place that you would accept service, as common sense would dictate taking the easiest path first.
And, if you both have attorneys, they talk to each other about paperwork service! Attorneys can accept or plan or even do service via mail etc etc.
Her being served publicly at her workplace speaks to me like she/her attorneys had been playing hardball/no contact with Jason’s attorneys & Jason/attorneys going the route they did is not the first route a process server or attorney or client choses.
It feels like to me, she thought she could just ignore Jason’s requests to formalize a custody agreement since she likely had physical custody w/o an established custody agreement since they weren’t married when she was served. Ignore your co-parent to your detriment, the court gives them power too.
Exactly this. Serving a motion doesn’t usually require personal service and if both sides have lawyers, then it is very common for the lawyers to simply agree to accept service on behalf of their client. A process server was needed because her lawyers weren’t going to accept service for her. Because had they done so this would have been avoided altogether. So at the very least Olivia’s lawyers helped put her in this situation.
Exactly this! Just experienced this with a friend. He & the mother weren’t married. She had custody because nothing was formalized. She took the kid cross country and cut off all communication, which was traumatizing to both the dad and the child, who had raised the child her entire life (she was 12). The mom was simply tired of sharing the kid. She evaded service. Wouldn’t share her address. He had to have her served via her mother.
Exactly! My ex avoided the process server for months because he didn’t want to start paying child support. Guess where they served him? At work.
There was a story about this a month or so ago that this part of the squabble is over where the jurisdiction of the proceedings would be. She wanted LA, he wanted NYC. So there was probably a lot of games being played on both sides over whose turf the custody hearings would be heard on.
I can never tell why I don’t like her. On paper, she often says some interesting things I agree with but she’s also in the past said some sh*t that was just annoying and pointed to someone I wouldn’t like in real life. Can’t get that out of the back of my mind. She strikes me as someone who knows what the right thing to say is but it often seems rehearsed.
I can’t stand her.
Never have been able to stand her.
Never could stand Jason Sudeikis either.
Thought they were perfect for each other
Agreed @Lightpurple. They deserve each other.
Yes they’re both painfully annoying–they made a great match in that sense.
But HS was paid $2.5m while FP got $700k so he was paid over triple what she received. And maybe he is the lead in the film and that’s why he’s paid more? But I honestly thought the character of Alice (FP) was the lead… if she is I understand why she’s pissed off with Olivia
+1
She actually disputes that in the article-this being Olivia, her statement still lacked the sort of detail that would clear it up entirely. Harry’s fans, the ones who don’t like her (he has both) think he has back end on the film but that seems unlikely.
No Florence is definitely the lead and Harry is supporting. OW made a big deal after she shot the film that Harry was so feminist to come in and be supporting because a lot of male stars only want to be the lead. This is before it came out that they were together. I was WTF because he had only been in Dunkirk that I knew of and he wasn’t a star in the acting field. She still isn’t talking about how much money each got. I thought she wanted to be transparent.
Florence’s character is definitely the lead. Based on the trailers, I’d go as far to say that Chris Pine’s character is more a lead than Harry’s. The movie feels that it’s Alice vs “Whatever Frank is up to.”
Originally Shia LaBeouf was going to play HS part but I don’t know why he didn’t. Then they brought on HS and supposedly offered him more money than FP. I would be upset if I was a lead in a movie and my supporting male co-star got paid more. I would think he got the part and money because he’s dating OW but at end of the day who knows what really happened.
It literally says in the interview that was not true. I still don’t even get how anyone believed it, considering the initial source, not the Hollywood Reporter or Deadline, but some site made up on WordPress.
And who here believes that Florence, who is in high demand, would accept that pay?
If she weren’t living with Harry Styles, more would be on her side. The envy is real.
my issue is she’s making something that was embarrassing professionally to her about her KIDS being the real victims (they’re 5 & 8, so they probably don’t even know this happened?), while simultaneously bringing up her kids in the interview and badmouthing their father with implied hints about his character. so… who’s bringing her kids into it? plus it seems pretty obvious that she was cheating on Sudeikis. so it’s hard to feel particularly warm and fuzzy about her.
I think Harry seems like a nice guy but I don’t really get the appeal lol.
Apparently, HS fans are toxic, but I doubt that’s why people don’t like OW.
I’m so excited for this movie. I loved Booksmart.
I agree with Olivia. Jason or his legal team decided to be really aggressive by serving her on stage at a public event. If it wasn’t about doing it publicly, why not wait for her to get off stage? It’s a shame. I wanted to believe Jason was a great guy (I mean he’s Ted Lasso!!).
I don’t envy her for dating Harry Styles. I love him, but his fans are so toxic.
Backstage access is tightly controlled at events like that and it would have been extremely unlikely the process server would been able to get back there. She likely also had some kind of security backstage and since this event was held in a Vegas hotel, she was navigating through back area service corridors to get from A to B.
Shocked at the response to her feeling humiliated and attacked by how she was served — sure, people get served at work sometimes. Do they get served while doing a major presentation? During a meeting with their peers or clients? No. She’s 100% correct that this strategy took forethought and the server needed to jump through several hoops to serve her in that manner. It was intentional and it was hurtful when she literally could’ve been served at home while her kids were at school. Now it’s in YouTube forever for her children to see.
But you don’t know how many unsuccessful hoops the server had to jump through before he got to that point. Most people conclude this was a desperate move because Olivia made it impossible to serve her elsewhere.
Her ex said in a statement about the situation that he didn’t want her served at the kids’ school or at home or at her boyfriend’s home, so it sounds to me like it was him who made it “impossible.”
I don’t conclude this was a desperate move when the server could’ve caught her entering or leaving the venue, going back to her hotel, at the airport, etc.
I am no fan of hers but the video of her being served is sort of amazing, she just carried on seamlessly, it was quite impressive. Overall the situation is not great but I think she could have gotten her point across differently in this interview and it would have been better as an online record that her kids will see some day (she thinks, I guess) and also just getting people on her side and not overplaying it. She clearly talked through what she wanted to say with her PR person beforehand, they just didn’t calibrate this correctly.
Soooo dramatic. Also: “I’m not going to talk about it except please just know that we’re not talking about it because our love for each other is SO deep and SO pure and that’s why we can’t talk about how much we love each other”. I’m dead.
She’s working really hard to make J.S. the bad guy here. I bet it’s getting harder and harder to portray that image as Ted Lasso gets bigger his “nice guy” character gets associated with him more and more.
I think serving her on stage while she was speaking was definitely a s****y move and I have no doubt it was intentional. No love lost between her and the ex. At the same time, so many red flags when a parent says “my kids are my best friends.” No, they are not, they are in elementary school and you are an adult, you are a parent and they are your small children and they need you to be a parent right now.
Agree on all points here. I’m giving her major side-eye for the whole “but the KIDS” defense. Never a good sign when a parent uses their children to paint themself as a victim.
Couldn’t agree more. Your elementary-school-aged kids are your best friends? RED FLAG! RED FLAG! There’s something seriously wrong with you!
I did love her saying something like the way service went down explains why she got out of that relationship. That’s some grade-A fire she’s unleashing. She’s attempting an “I am woman, here me roar” thing. Like this film is reflective of how she’s been held back, controlled, and gaslit in her life, career, and relationships. If she wants to be part of the gossip cycle, instead of continuing to harp on how hurt your kids are because you got served (give me an f’ing break), speak more on that!
I am really interested to see what she does with the film. I liked Book Smart a lot and thought it was well made. I am hoping this feature is as interesting. It will also be interesting to see how much of the advance press on this project is about her and relationship with Harry instead of the project. That doesn’t often work well( see Aronofsky and Jennifer Lawrence with Mother). I wonder how much press Florence will do for this as she also has The Wonder making the festival circuit and that project is more prestige/art house/ awards baity. Her team might want her to throw her energy behind that.
Back to this situation though, I think serving her on stage is an awful, gross, move as if another alternative could be found. But I am hella doubtful about both their claims about one another since they both seem kind of like jerks?
I always cringe when someone—celebrity or not—says their kids are their best friends.
Agreed – saying a child is a best friend for an adult creeps me out. You cannot possibly expect a… CHILD… to meet the needs of any kind of an…. ADULT. It’s a lot of pressure for the kid, too, to be referred to as a best friend when maybe they want to be best friends with the kid in their class and not give BFF status to an adult.
YUP!!! you can love your kids very much but if you consider a 5 and 8 year old to be your best friends, I’m questioning a lot about you.
but I think that’s mostly because every person I know that’s said that had an unhealthy relationship with their kid and relied on them for emotional support. I am NOT saying Olivia does that because how would I know, but I definitely have a bias because of it lol.
I have an 8 year old and when we are together we’re “inseparable” by his choice. It’s not the adult version of “best friends”. Nor are these literal explanations. It’s very much just the way some small children want to be with their parents. I’m not side eyeing her for having a close relationship with her children.
@Arizona- I think what the poster meant was that some parents discuss matters with their kids in a way that makes kids their emotional equal and support system which is what a best friend is, and which sort of forces kids to be emotional caregivers to adults. That’s where the “best friend” thing with kids can get weird. No one should side-eye her desire to be close to her kids but that’s a slightly different thing. They should hang out as much as possible, that’s great.
I’m not an attorney, so I don’t have any special insight into how the process server thing works. Maybe it’s easy to get into an industry event with an official badge; maybe it’s not. Maybe she’d been dodging service; perhaps she hadn’t. We’re not privy to the ins and outs of their family court history. But a couple of thoughts as a partnered parent:
-Sudeikis is NOT Ted Lasso, even as Ted Lasso’s “aw shucks” shtick has come to personify him.
-She’s worried her kids are going to read this stuff when they’re older? O rly? Then why are you putting their other parent on blast publicly?
I agree that there’s definitely some toxicity with Styles’ fanbase, but I’m pretty agnostic on all parties involved here. Neither parent is behaving in a pro-kid way, and it really sucks for their children.
Not gonna lie, I would be pissed off too. This was embarrassing as hell. That’s all I’m gonna say. I’ve sat and watched some friends go through this and it’s just brutal.
There’s a difference between just being served at your work office, and being served on stage during an important work event in front of hundreds of people. It was a dick move. He sounds like a dick.
“The only people who suffered were my kids, because they’ll have to see that, and they shouldn’t ever have to know that happened.”
My kids shouldn’t ever have to see it, but I’m still going to make it front and center of every interview so it will be the first ting they see when they ARE old enough to start looking it up.
They’re 5 and 8 – the only reason they should be aware of it at all is of someone is telling them and regardless of what led up to the papers being served at the convention, right now that looks to be her. I have seen very little commenting from his team. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a jerk in real life, but his team has been way more sensible about the matter at hand.
Also, if she’s so worried about the conversation distracting from all the hard work everyone put in on the movie, she should quit giving oxygen to it as well. She has enough clout to make that topic off limits.
Lastly – I could 100% see her paying him more. Remember, she’s the one who gushed about how gracious he was for letting Florence Pugh take the lead (who actually IS the lead actor) in the new movie even though he’s not an actor by training and whose role is only supporting anyway. Talk about being dickmatized.
Firstly, people get served at work all the time and servers usually only do that when they have exhausted all efforts to complete it elsewhere. Which leads me to believe that she must have been dodging them. Not only that, the petitioner does not get to tell them where to serve the papers. It just doesn’t work that way. And trying to use the kids as victims is also ridiculous. I could see that if her kids were there on stage with her or even backstage, but they weren’t. If she stopped constantly bitching to the media about it, everybody would have forgotten about it already. She is the one obsessing over it and constantly bringing it up. Didn’t he even offer a public apology, saying it was not his intention that she be serve that way?
There is clearly something else going on behind closed doors that we don’t know about yet. But I agree, this is probably going to get pretty messy in a very public way, pretty soon and she is not doing herself or her kids any favors documenting it in a Variety Magazine interview.
Idgaf about her divorce / daring drama, but I am DYING to know what is happening and why between her and Florence.
I remember reading something awhile back about Florence and Zach Braff possibly being friends with Sudeikis. Braff directed an episode of Ted Lasso.
I don’t know if her being served on stage was in any way deliberate or vicious on Jason’s part or not. Maybe he “planned” it with the server, or maybe that was just how the server was able to get the job done and Jason had nothing to do with that aspect of it.
Either way, she’s clutching her pearls about it publicly a little too hard. Making it about her kids is just transparent BS. They are unlikely to see or know, and her talking about it this way is just making it more likely that when and if they find out about it, they’ll be troubled thinking it was their father’s “fault.”
She’s also trashing him by saying “there’s a reason I got out of that relationship.” Well, of course there’s always a reason or multiple reasons. You don’t need to discuss them or make not-so-subtle shady comments about them to a major magazine. If your kids mean as much to you as you say they do, protect them by keeping them AND their father out of what is supposed to be an interview about you and your new film project.
She a lot.
It kind of undermines the period straight after the separation where they moved back in together in a bubble to both be able to be with the kids and Jason thanking her in the first acceptance speech that season (I think she was actually in the room with him when he won) and her tweet congratulating him. Something went sour along the way probably because of the custody agreement they need to negotiate.
Olivia is really setting herself up for backlash if this movie stinks. From the few clips I have seen, Styles cannot act at all. Also, Olivia has a history of trashing her exes that will be brought up again. I keep hearing they want to bring her into the MCU to direct a project so if I were her PR I would tell her to tread very carefully in interviews so as to not screw up her chance to get some big money directing gigs. I used to really like her but I am starting to reconsider that. I do not give a crap about Harry Styles and I do not watch anything Ted Sudakis is in so I have no opinion at all on him. I am rooting for Florence Pugh at this point.
Feige talks to his actors when he makes hiring decisions. So who has she worked with? Both Harry and Florence are MCU, although Florence, by far, has the bigger MCU profile, featuring in a film & a TV series while Harry just has an end credit scene. Her MCU future may come down to what Chris Hemsworth thinks of her. Hemsworth recommended Tom Holland for SpiderMan so Feige does listen to him.
I’m concluding she was probably always tiresome and that I overlooked and missed a lot of that. That’s been corrected.
“Happiness is the best revenge”.
Divorce lawyer here – and from my own perspective I can say that’s 100% true. The people who take the high road and move on, despite the ex’s stupid vindictive behaviour, are the real winners. Even more so when the kids are involved.
It’s still possible to do this when you are leaving an abusive partner, while holding them accountable legally, where appropriate.
If Olivia had simply said something like “I’m not going to comment on a private matter. I’m focused on my present, and I’m so happy and grateful to have amazing kids and my dream job and a partner I love. ” or something similar, it would have shut things down and given her a leg up and a ton of cred.
I agree with this. I don’t agree with a bunch of the speculation up thread but she absolutely could have said a lot less about her feelings on the mess and Jason specifically. She wanted to get that dig in and while I understand the impulse, a little self control goes a long way when you’re in the middle of a custody battle. Tell your therapist, not the general public.
What’s so unfortunate about Olivia Wilde being so incredibly messy, is that her entire PR team should be focusing on her as an in-command director, and not latching onto or discussing any of the drama. Let the personal messiness die from lack of oxygen. Focus on the work. Female directors are only just now starting to re-gain significant traction in Hollywood, and all this motherhood-messiness only hurts the cause for women. Olivia Wilde and her team need to STFU about divorce, custody, dating, children, relationship wars, and all the drama, and focus on the quality of the work, the calibre of the work, show her as a capable, competent director who makes excellent work without any of the personal-drama sideshow. It is not helping her at all to keep fanning the flames. Please shut up, Olivia. Focus on the work. Talk to your therapist, attorney, and your trusted friends about the personal stuff. Work it out privately. Do not ruin this for aspiring female directors by giving substance to the stupid notion that women cannot handle with aplomb a high-level career and a family, at the same time. Handle it with aplomb, FFS, Olivia. Your directing is excellent, and that’s the ONLY thing that you should be talking about publicly.
The thing about her interview with Variety, which is true for much of what she has done on podcasts, in print interviews and in onstage promo events for her work, is that she goes so hard trying to contextualize her experience with the greater experience of women directors in Hollywood that she seems like she’s gunning to be a spokesperson for all other female directors. She did it in interviews with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Chloe Zhao, Zoe-Lister-Jones and Emerald Fennell, all when she was supposed to be interviewing them about their films but she ended up talking about herself a lot, way more than she should have been. Her experience, especially a bunch of the mistakes around casting for this film (Shia) and production (relationship w Harry) are hers and hers alone. She doesn’t want to own them so she keeps acting like she’s been voted in as class President by the other female directors in the DGA and …she hasn’t. It’s like she’s trying to create the impression they support her because she is so noisy about supporting them. But they aren’t getting involved here.
So… if it’s about the kids, why didn’t she have her attorneys accept service? That’s always an option and it’s private.
I’ve always gotten bad vibes from her but even I thought she handled the service well on stage but now she’s ruining it again.
This Olivia/Harry/Jason drama makes everyone look bad, particularly Olivia. I agree with Kaiser. She says all the “right” things, but something about her seems off. I never cared about OW before all of this. I was neutral to positive about her, but my opinion has been lowered since she started dating Harry. This article should be a home run for her. She handled the Shia Lebouf situation (per her telling of events) masterfully, yet she feels self-righteous and kind of desperate? It doesn’t help that she is preaching female pleasure, empowerment, and equity, yet her star refuses to mention OW or the film unless she has to. Florence loves going on her socials to promote her movies. She always has a kind word to say about the crew and cast. Her silence is very telling. Also, it’s not lost on me that as she talks about female empowerment, she has chosen to partner with a man who can use his privilege to ignore and disengage from his fanbase while his girlfriend is torn apart. All of this is ick and disappointing.
I can’t stand this woman
A Variety cover and a Vogue cover – wow her ambition is being well served by being with HS. She has been too chummy with rapists for me to ever support her brand of feminism. She is a sham.
I think being served in public is the only thing she has as leverage to try to dilute how bad she looks.
She dumped her long-time partner and the father of her children in order to start boinking her employee, who she may well have cast in that movie as a way to get access to him. It looks predatory and very-possibly adulterous too.
No, getting handed an envelope at work is not “vicious”, and no, it doesn’t traumatize your kids, who were not there. But histrionics over this minor slight is all she’s got to distract from what looks like a much worse betrayal that she perpetrated.
There is something about her that just rubs me the wrong way. I don’t believe that Jason Sudiekis gave explicit instructions to serve her at Cinema Con. I’m a paralegal and that isn’t how it works with process servers. This process server in particular tried to serve her at her hotel before going to Comic Con, meaning she dodged at least once. So it’s pretty gross to blame your ex when he didn’t know that would happen and you’ve been dodging the process server. And it’s even more gross to try and make her kids the victims just to make Jason look worse. Because that is sure how it looks to me. And I say all this as someone who usually takes the woman’s side. But in this case, so much of what she is saying and doing looks to me like punishment because Jason is trying to stop her from taking their kids to London.
I mean, think about it, why would Sudeikis have her served in front of the entire world when he had explicitly instructed that she not be served at her home or her partner’s home because he didn’t want the kids to see? That doesn’t make sense. And how is what she is doing not going to hurt her kids? They’re going to read her comments about their Dad someday. The more she talks, the more I dislike her.
I wouldn’t necessarily take Jason’s word on his motivations, instructions to his lawyers about how she should be served, feelings towards her etc as gospel. There’s a lot of stuff he is leaving out of his explanations because it doesn’t benefit him to highlight it. He is aware he has some good guy capital to burn and is milking this. Olivia is also not honest about her motivations etc and is milking it. They are sort of a perfect match, in certain respects.
Cheating on your spouse is vicious too.