‘I believe in early failure,’ Olivia Wilde recently declared.
The actress, 42, has faced more ups and downs than a rollercoaster, and that’s before you even take her personal life into account.
Wilde’s recent candid confession about her underwhelming transition from acting to directing is refreshing alongside her latest offering of The Invite – the comeback I never expected to see.
When I saw the tense four-way-sex comedy last weekend, I couldn’t help but think about Wilde’s drastic professional shift. She is the definition of third time’s the charm.
Her 2019 directorial debut Booksmart was highly acclaimed but failed to make a dent at the box office. Her second psychological thriller, Don’t Worry Darling, was scandal-ridden to say the least.
But The Invite, the third film Wilde has directed, is everything you go to the cinema for. Smart, hilarious, sexy, and utterly compelling.
Not only that, but it was one of the best movie experiences I’ve had in years – a sold-out screening with everyone roaring with laughter throughout. Not a single person got up to go to the toilet for 107 minutes.
Of course, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton are all brilliant in the surprisingly moving tale. But it feels like Wilde’s time to shine without the constant chat of her love life swirling in the background has finally arrived.
Knowing she was at the helm for such an outstanding film, while also being the comedic standout in her role as awkward, self-effacing Angela, is something I haven’t stopped thinking about since watching it.
‘There were a lot of early bumps, and I think that taught me to have level-headed expectations for Hollywood,’ Wilde said in a recent interview with Variety.
‘So my next movie had a 38 on Rotten Tomatoes, and I’ve been reflecting on how healthy it is to be reminded of how fickle it all is.
‘You’ve already been through the thing that strikes fear in the heart of directors. What if they don’t like it? Once you’ve survived that, there’s liberation.’
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And Wilde has well and truly survived in a frustrating climate in Hollywood where women often aren’t allowed to do something mediocre and get a second chance to try again.
No thanks to several of her high-profile relationships, she’s had to face some humiliating hurdles along the way.
In April 2022, she was served custody papers by ex Jason Sudeikis while on stage to present the trailer for Don’t Worry Darling at CinemaCon. To this day, I still find the footage mortifying to watch.
Wilde recalled it as ‘traumatising’.
But it’s been a metaphor for her career in film – every time she’s tried to be taken seriously as an actress or director, scandal gets in the way.
Most films are being directed by men, and that isn’t news, but very rarely do they face the added pressure of their love lives being dissected so publicly.
The interest in Wilde’s relationships has often been relentless and distracting, something which often isn’t the case in the private lives of ambitious male directors. What she was doing was something men get away with all the time.
After her split from Sudeikis, Wilde fell victim to the boy band fandom when she dated Harry Styles for two years after meeting on set in 2022. It was a relationship steeped in misogyny because of their age gap. It irrationally annoyed people.
‘It’s almost like the happiness made them mad,’ Wilde said of the backlash towards the relationship.
‘I would go to his shows and dance, and people were like, “Oh! How could she? … How dare you dance and smile?”’
She added to The Cut: ’I became the full-on villain. Like Cruella.’
Drama has followed Wilde around like a bad smell for years, but it finally feels like the undeserved mockery aimed at her career is fizzling out.
‘I do have that feeling that if I never made anything else, I’d be OK,’ she says of The Invite, but it’s doubtful to be her last.
The film is already generating much-deserved 2027 Oscar buzz, while I Want Your Sex, an upcoming erotic comedy (coincidentally) about an age-gap relationship she stars, is being hailed as her best performance to date.