{"id":899099,"date":"2026-06-28T18:31:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T18:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/899099\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T18:31:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T18:31:12","slug":"olivia-wilde-on-the-invite-and-dont-worry-darling-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/899099\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivia Wilde on ‘The Invite’ and ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOlivia Wilde<\/a> did almost everything you are not supposed to do to make \u201cThe Invite<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe shot her third feature as a director in a tight 21 days, scene by scene, in story order, which is a luxury most directors give up before the first morning of prep work. She also got to shoot it on film. Not to mention, the entire premise of the film is confined to a single San Francisco apartment, which allowed her to rehearse it like a play, asking her cast to work for nothing for six weeks so the experiment could hold together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe result is a claustrophobic chamber comedy that locks two couples inside one home, unfolding into a wild night they will never forget. And when the offers came in after the splashy premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Wilde knew one thing about where the movie would not go.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEvery distributor wanted to take this movie to theaters, and I was adamant that we didn\u2019t go to a streamer,\u201d she tells Variety. \u201cFrom all the non-streamers, they all wanted to put it in a theater. That\u2019s a really good sign for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt is a pointed stance from a filmmaker who has watched the streaming giants reshape the Hollywood business, and she frames it as part of a larger shift she sees breaking in favor of independent film. The box office is climbing, she argues, on the strength of the exact audience the platforms wrote off. The generation that was counted out \u2013 Gen Z \u2013 is showing up, embracing authorship and rejecting the idea that young viewers will only watch at home.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf Wilde sounds liberated, it is because she has already lived through the version of failure that could paralyze most directors. Her 2019 indie comedy \u201cBooksmart\u201d received near-unanimous raves. Then came her 2022 drama \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling,\u201d which took a beating from critics and the public. She embraces that pendulum swing as the best thing that could have happened to her.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI believe in early failure,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you go through that, the way \u2018Don\u2019t Worry Darling\u2019 did with a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, there\u2019s liberation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat freedom and philosophy have seemed to run straight through \u201cThe Invite,\u201d a movie she made by chasing process over outcome and surrounding herself with collaborators willing to attempt the impossible on a compressed schedule.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tProduction designer Jade Healy conjured the apartment, a labyrinth of walls, and frames within frames and \u201cRear Window\u201d sightlines, in a single weekend. Costume designer Arianne Phillips dyed Wilde\u2019s blouse to match the walls so her character would all but vanish into the home she sacrificed her ambitions to keep. And her scene-partner Seth Rogen, in what Wilde calls a career peak, delivers a performance she compares to Albert Brooks and 1980s Richard Dreyfuss, alongside Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe A24<\/a>-distributed film is also, beneath the comedy, a study of what unhappy couples project onto the people they wish they had married, a structural sleight of hand Wilde is happy to unpack for anyone who caught it.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn a Zoom with Variety, she talks about the gamble of shooting in sequence, the apartment that became a fifth character, the streamer fight she refused to lose, and the moment she knew Rogen was doing his best work.<\/p>\n

\n\tSPOILER ALERT<\/strong>: This Q&A contains spoilers for \u201cThe Invite,\u201d now playing in select theaters.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u201cThe Invite\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Sundance Film Festival<\/p>\n

\t\t\u201cBooksmart\u201d came out of the gate to raves, and \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling\u201d took a beating. Did this one feel like you finally got the nerves out as a director?<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m so glad it felt that way. I don\u2019t know if anyone ever feels totally without nerves. Still, I do think I reached a level of un-self-consciousness that only comes from recognizing that the only way to achieve anything worthwhile is to throw yourself into it completely. The risk is the thing. It is the reward.<\/p>\n

\n\tI believe in early failure. The first pilot I did got canceled in three episodes. There were a lot of early bumps, and I think that taught me to have level-headed expectations for Hollywood. \u201cBooksmart\u201d was a blessing, but it also creates a certain expectation for yourself when it comes to connecting with the audience, and you forget how subjective it all is. So my next movie has a 38 on Rotten Tomatoes, and I\u2019ve been reflecting on how healthy it is to be reminded of how fickle it all is. You\u2019ve already been through the thing that strikes fear in the heart of directors. What if they don\u2019t like it? Once you\u2019ve survived that, there\u2019s liberation.<\/p>\n

\t\tYou shot the film in 21 days. Is it true you shot it sequentially?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s not a rumor, it\u2019s the truth. Twenty-one days on the stage, and then two days on location for the footage you see in the opening title sequence.<\/p>\n

\t\tHow, and why?<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tFor a long time, I\u2019ve been looking for a piece of material that would allow for this experience of shooting something sequentially. And not only that, having time to rehearse the damn thing, which, as everybody who\u2019s ever made a movie knows, is the first thing we give away. It\u2019s amazing how much of what you see in films is the first pancake. People go for it, and I have mad respect for those who nail that. But I\u2019ve always wondered what it would be like if we built in time to marinate this thing.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s what the directors I revere have always done. Mike Nichols\u2019 \u201cWho\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?\u201d was my north star. I wanted to approach this like a play. Rehearse, shoot it sequentially, because we were only on one set, and shoot it on film, which was the third dream. But it took the actors\u2019 cooperation because I needed them fully engaged in the process. In this movie, they were making $0 for six weeks. When you\u2019re working with busy actors, you often get a cluster of days here and a cluster there, and you end up blocking shooting and Rubik\u2019s Cubing your production. I wanted everyone to be part of every step of the process, from rehearsal through the end of the shoot, and this cast was incredibly gracious with their time and energy.<\/p>\n

\t\tLet\u2019s talk about the ending, because I have a theory. The way it\u2019s cut, the abrupt stop and start, I read it that the other couple was never actually there. Am I correct?<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\t[Hands raised to celebrate] That is my interpretation, and that was the intention. Do you know which scene breaks the rule? There\u2019s a moment where Hawk goes into the bathroom, and he\u2019s alone at the medicine cabinet. Otherwise, you never experience those characters without the presence of Joe and Angela.<\/p>\n

\n\tI love that you felt it, because to me, it works both ways. This couple reaches a point of combustion in an early argument, when they finally say the word that triggers the projection of the other two: \u201cmiserable.\u201d There\u2019s something about admitting unhappiness that is a game-changer. We can go a long time with dissatisfaction expressed only through passive aggression and barbs, but when someone looks you in the face and says, \u201cI am miserable in this relationship,\u201d that is often the point at which you either fix it or fail.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe project these people who teach us a lesson. They are, in many ways, the ideal partners we could imagine for ourselves. But imagining the ideal other is part of understanding what you actually want and deserve. There are little clues if you look back. Should people appear in mirrors when they don\u2019t? Are there wine glasses? Tiny things. It also works if you don\u2019t buy that at all.<\/p>\n

\t\tThis may be Seth Rogen\u2019s finest moment as an actor. Thank God someone saw what he could do.<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThat means so much to me because I revere Seth. He\u2019s not only smart in how he writes and creates, and smart in the way any great actor is, but he also has a connection to the audience\u2019s experience unlike anything I\u2019ve ever witnessed. He knows in his bones when an audience is underserved or over-served. He brings everything down to its simplest form. He never overcomplicates. He is allergic to pretentious approaches to anything.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn this movie, we get to show the side of him that comes from reaching a kind of Albert Brooks or 1980s Richard Dreyfuss place. There\u2019s a quality to him that is not of this time. And he makes everyone in a scene better. He\u2019s just extraordinary.<\/p>\n

\t\tThe production design floored me. The house is a fifth character. Tell me about Jade Healy.<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tJade is extraordinary, and right away, she understood what one location can actually be. She understood that, though it\u2019s one apartment, it can feel like a labyrinth, with several small spaces. She designed the whole set over one weekend. I talked to her on a Thursday, and by Monday, she had a full design.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe said we\u2019re going to create frames within frames, using the architecture as emotional blocks, barriers, and boundaries between people. The mirrors, the glass, the windows. She figured out that a tight airshaft design could provide additional vantage points, so a character witnesses something in a very intentional \u201cRear Window\u201d-style, voyeuristic way through a window into the other apartment.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the original script, the house was an open floor plan. The idea was that there was nowhere to hide. We changed that. We created hiding places, hallways, offices, corners and bedrooms so the foursome could split into two and have what we called the house tours, two little rendezvous happening concurrently. Jade created a space where you feel the danger of proximity to your partner, but also the privacy to have secret conversations. Once you know the space you\u2019re going to exist in, you can tell the story specific to what that space allows.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe house inspired me as a character representing the home Joe grew up in, far beyond his current financial means, with the bones of an expensive house and the skin of people living right on the edge.<\/p>\n

\n\tI want to give a shout-out to our cinematographer, Adam Newport-Berra, because he is on a real run right now. He and his crew are extraordinary. That is the most exciting DP working today, and you can see it in \u201cThe Invite.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd Steve Morrow, our sound mixer. The second time we worked together, I told him I wanted everyone to speak like we were in a Robert Altman film. I wanted us to improvise, and I never wanted anyone told to hold a line for someone else\u2019s line. He is live-mixing the whole thing, and it\u2019s such a thrill when audiences say they like how natural it feels when everyone is speaking, even with the overlapping dialogue. That\u2019s so much a part of what I think works.<\/p>\n

\t\tYour character, Angela, almost disappears into the walls.<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThat was intentional. Thanks to Arianne Phillips, our costume designer, who dyed my blouse to match the walls perfectly. It creates an almost subconscious effect of Angela having little to no identity beyond this home. She gave up the dream of being an artist to raise a family and be a homemaker, so much of her life lost to the surface of things, the throw pillows and the lamps, because she was unable to go deeper.<\/p>\n

\t\tDistributors came calling after the festival. What was your line in the sand?<\/strong>\t<\/p>\n

\n\tEvery distributor wanted to take this movie to theaters, and I was adamant that we didn\u2019t go to a streamer. Of all the non-streamers, they all really wanted to put it in a theater. I think that\u2019s a really good sign for everyone.<\/p>\n

\n\tPeople are unsure about the industry for good reason, with everything happening with AI and in the world. But something really positive is happening too. We\u2019re seeing it at the box office: a 30% upswing driven by the generation the big streaming giants counted out. They said Gen Z doesn\u2019t want to watch films in theaters, and we\u2019re seeing an outright rejection of that and an embracing of authorship. What we\u2019re seeing is the triumph of independent film, independent studios, and independent companies saying, \u201cWe\u2019re going to approach this differently.\u201d There is an appetite for theatrical films and comedies. Audiences are very motivated to support independent filmmakers, and that\u2019s a good thing for all of us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Olivia Wilde did almost everything you are not supposed to do to make \u201cThe Invite.\u201d She shot her…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":899100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[3028,185,171,202775,237987,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-899099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-a24","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-olivia-wilde","tag-the-invite","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116829166501340338","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}