Don’t Worry Darling: Florence Pugh had a tense chat with Olivia Wilde about her on-set ‘canoodling’ with Harry Styles?

What began as inspired ambition for actor-director Olivia Wilde has somehow gone off the rails in the course of a few days. Her second directorial Don’t Worry Darling was kicked off in 2020 amid tremendous hype and optimism, and despite the few blips along the way, the merit of the film and its subject matter took priority over everything else.

However, only days away from the much-anticipated premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Olivia Wilde and her passion project find themselves soaked in media attention that, in many ways, isn’t in their favour. From reports of Olivia Wilde’s alleged raunchy on-set affair with lead actor Harry Styles to the ‘fired vs walk-out' confusion involving original casting choice Shia LaBeouf, Don’t Worry Darling has had a few serious things to worry about in the recent past.

Don't Worry Darling: Did Shia LaBeouf voluntarily quit Olivia Wilde’s directorial? Or was he fired? 

And to make things only worse, reports regarding the simmering tension between Olivia Wilde and the film’s female lead Florence Pugh continue to emerge with each day offering new insights.

As per the latest reports, sources close to the production of Don’t Worry Darling have revealed that they saw Pugh and Olivia Wilde be part of a really tense conversation with the former, in particular, angered by Wilde and Styles’ absences during the set-ups of shots.

The film was made through the thick of Covid with Olivia Wilde often holding meetings regarding the on-set protocol and safety and asking her cast & crew to consciously avoid large gatherings. And yet, she would be spotted with Styles at his manager’s wedding only weeks later to make the dedicated crew feel that the director isn’t walking the talk. Alongside, the unfounded rumours of Wilde being egotistic and punishing as a director made the news which only caused the narrative to be continually nudged against her favour.

Another report reveals that Florence Pugh and Olivia Wilde differed on the importance of the film’s sex scenes in the promotional material. Don’t Worry Darlings is a sociological thriller set in the 1950s about a seemingly happy and loving couple whose lives turn upside down when the wife (Pugh) unravels disturbing truths about her husband’s (played by Harry Styles) secret work project. As the trailer of the film reveals, there’s striking physical chemistry between the two leads which is crucial to the shaping of the twisted narrative but both Pugh and Wilde have shared contrasting opinions in the past about the significance of these sequences.

While Wilde advocated for the need to showcase a specific kind of female hunger and pleasure, Florence Pugh asserted that the film’s publicity material shouldn’t highlight the physical intimacy part alone and that the film is “bigger and better than that”.

In a nutshell, Don’t Worry Darling has been marred with relentless drama that is now threatening to take the focus completely away from its core essence. However, the film has reached the revered Venice International Film Festival and one would certainly hope that the much-anticipated premiere on September 6 washes away all the dirt. More updates to follow soon.