The passage of Olivia Wilde, Harry Styles and Florence Pugh by the Venice film festival to present ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ has not disappointed anyone, and we are not talking precisely about the reaction of the critics. The second film Wilde has directed in her entire career came into the competition preceded by the drama that has unfolded behind the scenes in recent months.
At this point, the love story between the filmmaker and the former member of One Direction is the least of it. Her romantic relationship, which began during filming and shortly after she split from her ex Jason Sudeikis, has been overshadowed by rumors about tensions between Wilde and her female star. The departure of Shia Labeouf from the project to be replaced by Styles has also given a lot to talk about, because he has shown -proof in hand- that he was not fired, as was initially implied, but his decision.
In Venice, everything has been smiles before the cameras, but the interactions between the cast have been analyzed down to the smallest detail. Chris Pine, who has a supporting role in the plot, has inadvertently added a touch of humor to the press conference that everyone offered without Florence, who made her grand entrance into Venice on her own a few hours later – with an aperol spritz in hand- taking advantage of the excuse that he came straight from shooting the sequel to ‘Dune’.
The actor has managed to win the admiration of social networks for maintaining an admirable stoicism, or at least trying, while Styles pronounced phrases before the press such as: “What I like most about the movie is that … it looks like a movie”, or “What I like about acting is that it gives me the impression that I have no idea what I’m doing, and it’s quite fun.”
Pine has also starred in another moment with his young co-star that has gone viral. Wilde and Styles, who avoided posing together on the red carpet, strategically placed him in the seat between them during the screening of the film, and just before sitting down next to him it seemed that Styles had spat on him. Pine even stopped clapping for a few seconds and turned his head the other way, but it’s not entirely clear what exactly happened. Twitter, of course, has its own theories in this regard, which rescue an old custom that the singer had in his concerts and that consisted of spitting water at the public. This gesture was baptized as ‘the whale’ by his fans, but it seems very unlikely that he decided to take it to Venice.