Olivia Wilde Says Women in Hollywood Need a 'Community': It's 'So Difficult to Be Heard'
Olivia Wilde is looking out for her fellow women in Hollywood.
On Thursday, the Don't Worry Darling director and star attended the 2022 Women in Film Honors at the Beverly Hill Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, wearing an all-black gown that showed her midriff.
During a panel at the ceremony, Wilde said she believes women in the film industry "need that community because sometimes it's really difficult, so difficult to be heard."
"It's really difficult to keep going," she added, before sharing an anecdote from making her 2015 film Meadowland with director and cinematographer Reed Morano.
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"And I saw how that set did have a fair amount of men who I witnessed worshipping you and just in the most respectful sense of that word, really standing up for you," Wilde told Morano, also in attendance, during the panel. "And I was like, 'I want that. I want to not say, you know, this is a process of fighting for only women on sets. I want women in positions of leadership so that men can learn from women. Look at all these men learning from Reed.' "
After making Meadowland, Wilde would go to make her acclaimed directorial debut Booksmart (2019), which she'd follow up with this year's hit thriller Don't Worry Darling, starring Florence Pugh and Harry Styles.
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The actress and filmmaker was recently honored during Elle's Women in Hollywood Celebration at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, where she declared "I love my life" as she discussed her career and the scrutiny she's faced.
"I was an actress who started producing and then finally got the courage to start directing, and wouldn't have started any of it at all if I knew Twitter would be invented," she said during her speech, per The Hollywood Reporter. "But here I am and it's a real thrill to have what is undeniably the greatest job on the planet."
Wilde went on to address what she considers "the burning hellfire of the misogyny that defines this business," with a shoutout to women in the industry who have given support in "the form of a tight grip of your shoulders and a tense stare into your eyes and a defiant, 'Do not let them f---with you.' And it's always really tempting to reply, 'Well if I didn't know things were bad before, I do now.' "
"Let's face it: You're not a woman in Hollywood until you've begged to be placed into a medically induced coma until your press tour is finished. Until then, you are just a woman residing in or around the Hollywood area," she added, in part. "I love my life, I love my job — what more could I ask for?"
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Wilde's comments at the event came shortly after the Don't Worry Darling director — who has been embroiled in controversy surrounding the film in recent weeks — and her ex-fiancé Jason Sudeikis gave a joint statement in which they shut down claims from their former nanny about the details surrounding the pair's split and the beginnings of Wilde's relationship with Styles.
The nanny for Sudeikis and Wilde's two kids, daughter Daisy, 6, and son Otis, 8, alleged in part in the interview that the Ted Lasso star, 47, was blindsided and "brokenhearted" by Wilde's new relationship with Styles, 28.
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On one occasion, the nanny, whose name was not revealed, said Sudeikis "went outside and lay under her car so she wouldn't leave."
"As parents, it is incredibly upsetting to learn that a former nanny of our two young children would choose to make such false and scurrilous accusations about us publicly," the former couple said in their statement. "Her now 18 month long campaign of harassing us, as well as loved ones, close friends and colleagues, has reached its unfortunate apex."
"We will continue to focus on raising and protecting our children with the sincere hope that she will now choose to leave our family alone," added Wilde and Sudeikis.
