Olivia Wilde Doubles Down on Claim She Fired Shia LaBeouf from DWD: "He Was Replaced"
Olivia Wilde Doubles Down on Claim She Fired Shia LaBeouf from Don't Worry Darling: 'He Was Replaced' https://t.co/KJCbXQ1iO9
- People (@people) September 8, 2022
Olivia Wilde is doubling down with her claims that she fired Shia LaBeouf from Don't Worry Darling. During her new interview with Vanity Fair, Wilde, 38, reassures readers that she did call LaBeouf, 36, and fire him from the upcoming film after Florence Pugh expressed she was uncomfortable with the actor's behavior.
"My responsibility was towards [Florence]," Wilde told Vanity Fair. "I'm like a mother wolf. Making the call was tricky, but in a way he understood. I don't think it would've been a process he enjoyed. He comes at his work with an intensity that can be combative."
"It wasn't the ethos that I demand in my productions," she added. "I want him to get well and to evolve because I think it's a great loss to the film industry when someone that talented is unable to work."
LaBeouf publicly disputed Wilde's claim and argued that he quit the film due to a lack of rehearsal time with Pugh, 26, and other actors in August. In her interview with the publication, Wilde said LaBeouf's exit was "much more nuanced than can be explained in private texts released out of context."
"All I'll say is he was replaced, and there was no going forward with him. I wish him the best in his recovery," she added.
[More quotes]On hiring non-actor Harry Styles: “I have that piece of notebook paper where I had written my top three ideas,” she says. “Harry was the first one and it was circled a bunch of times. Then I’d written in another pen on another day, like, ‘Unavailable. Damn! On tour.’ ” Wilde called Styles’s agent to see if COVID had affected his schedule. It had. Styles is a pop superstar, but his only previous acting credit at the time was Dunkirk. Wilde conferred with crew who had worked with him on the film, met him over Zoom, got Pugh’s sign-off, and hired him.
“My thing with Harry was that I knew he was fearless,” she says. “I’d rather work with a non-actor who’s fearless than a trained actor who is full of hang-ups and baggage and judgment. What I love about working with singers and dancers is they commit 100 percent because, as a dancer, if you don’t commit 100 percent, you get hurt. With singers, it’s the same. If they sing at 30 percent, that song doesn’t work. I think actors sometimes think they can get away with 30 percent.”
On rumors she left her husband Jason for Harry: “The complete horseshit idea that I left Jason for Harry is completely inaccurate,” she says. “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.”
On Harry Styles wearing an apron or something: The fact that Styles is an outspoken feminist-and cuts a dashing figure in gender-neutral fashion-came in handy too. There’s a scene in Darling that pays homage to The Apartment, with Styles doing his best Jack Lemmon in the kitchen and struggling to prepare dinner in a ruffled apron. “Harry and I had a conversation about that apron,” Wilde says. “I brought it to him and said, ‘What do you think about wearing this?’ He said, ‘Yeah, great, why?’ I said, ‘It’s a practical thing to wipe your hands on. And it’s also sending a message that this man isn’t insecure about his masculinity and he is making himself equivalent to his wife.” Wearing an apron was not an issue for Harry Styles, to say the least.
“It is very rare that people assume the best from women in power,” @OliviaWilde says, acknowledging the gossip that has flooded the internet as of late. But her belief in ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ has not wavered.
🔗: https://t.co/pvKoXZOIwZ pic.twitter.com/TXpki9B0NN
- VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) September 8, 2022
Some have speculated Wilde’s relationship with Harry Styles, Pugh’s co-star, was a possible source of tension, with others going as far as to suggest that the director was neglecting her professional duties on set. A claim Wilde calls “laughable.”
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- VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) September 8, 2022
Wilde is careful about commenting on her relationship with Styles, but she is ready to shut down one false rumor: the “horseshit idea that I left Jason for Harry.”
Read the full cover story: https://t.co/pvKoXZOIwZ
- VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) September 8, 2022
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