For the past two years, the world has been consumed by Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde’s relationship, which began when they worked alongside each other on the set of the upcoming thriller, Don’t Worry, Darling: Styles in a supporting role and Wilde in the director’s seat. In the middle of it all was the film’s lead, Florence Pugh, who, in recent months, as its press circuit has begun ahead of its September release, has appeared to snub any and all mentions of the project on social media. This activity — or lack thereof — added to recent gossip of some sort of tension between Pugh and Wilde that began, as all celebrity gossip today seems to, with anonymous submissions to @DeuxMoi.
Now, in a just-released cover interview for Harper’s BAZAAR, Pugh has spoken out for the first time since the feud rumors started, opening up about being cast alongside the world’s most famous — and lusted after — man. For her part, Pugh says the hype around Styles is distracting from the true focus: the film and art the pair, and everyone else who worked on the movie, created.
Back in May, when Don’t Worry, Darling’s trailer was released, much of the conversation surrounded a steamy sex scene between Pugh and Styles, who play husband and wife on screen. Addressing the conversation, Pugh says, “When it’s reduced to your sex scenes, or to watch the most famous man in the world go down on someone, it’s not why we do it. It’s not why I’m in this industry.”
“Obviously, the nature of hiring the most famous pop star in the world, you’re going to have conversations like that,” she continued, referring to Wilde’s last-minute decision to recast the original actor, Shia LeBeouf, with Styles.
“That’s just not what I’m going to be discussing because [this movie is] bigger and better than that. And the people who made it are bigger and better than that.”
Pugh made no mention of her relationship with Styles or Wilde off-set, but fans have noticed she didn’t like nor share Wilde’s Instagram post praising her for her acting last month, nor share any publicity materials for the film when Wilde did. Four days ago, Pugh did post the film poster, writing, “Not everyone gets this opportunity…” Not long now! Only in theatres September 23rd #dontworrydarling”
Instead, Pugh shared, on the same day, the trailer for a different film she’s working on with a later release date to that of DWD. Following that, Page Six reported the cause of this alleged tension comes down to Styles and Wilde’s relationship apparently overlapping with the end of Wilde’s marriage to Jason Sudeikis: “I can tell you for a fact that Flo seeing Olivia and Harry all over each other on set did not go down well as Olivia was still with Jason when she first hooked up with Harry,” a source told the outlet.
Further adding weight to this, others have noted that Pugh’s boyfriend at the time, Zac Braff, is reportedly good friends with Sudeikis, who he worked with on Ted Lasso. “Jason and the kids visited Olivia on set at the beginning a few times, so I think this all made people feel a little uncomfortable,” they continued at the time.
Now, all there is for us to do is wait to see what those “body language experts” have to say when Wilde, Pugh and Styles take to the Venice Film Festival red carpet in T-minus three weeks’ time.
