Florence Pugh and Olivia Wilde have been met with fresh feud claims as Don’t Worry Darling is finally released in cinemas.
Speculation has been rife for months that there was trouble behind the scenes of the psychological thriller, with whispers of a blow-out between the director and her lead actress.
The rumormill went into overdrive when the Alice star limited her promotion of the flick to just Venice Film Festival, before she skipped the cast press conference and only hit the red carpet.
Although we were briefly distracted by spitgate at the star-studded premiere, a new report has claimed ‘screaming match’ took place on set at the beginning of 2021.
An insider has now alleged that the row unfolded last January, with around a quarter of the movie left to shoot.
According to the source, Florence is thought to have become fed up with Olivia’s frequent absences on set, telling Vulture: ‘Olivia and Harry [Styles] would just disappear’.
Tensions seemingly reached breaking point when the Midsommar star and filmmaker broke into a ‘screaming match’, with Warner Bros bosses allegedly intervening to ensure that Florence would still participate.
Top executives were reportedly also unhappy with how Olivia has treated her promotional duties for the film, which finally hit cinemas this week.
‘Olivia is either a mad genius who figured out a way to make people more aware of the movie in a way that just drives up the box office,’ another source told the publication.
‘Or she doesn’t have any self-awareness that she is f**king up her movie.’
The Booksmart director has spoken out against rumors of a rift on her film set and has chosen to heap praise on her co-star in interviews when discussing Don’t Worry Darling, recently telling Vanity Fair: ‘Florence did the job I hired her to do, and she did it exquisitely. She blew me away. Every day I was in awe of her, and we worked very well together.
‘It is ironic that now, with my second film – which is again about the incredible power of women, what we’re capable of when we unite, and how easy it is to strip a woman of power by using other women to judge and shame them – we’re talking about this.’
She clarified that the character of Alice is on a challenging journey and a ‘cataclysmic existential breakdown’ throughout the film, which put may have Florence in a different mindset to her castmates.
‘My tendency is to be everyone’s best friend and to socialize, and I think she often just needed the time and space to focus, so the way I supported her was to give her space and to be there if she needed anything,’ she continued. ‘Florence was very focused on turning out that performance, which I can assure you took all of her energy.’
Discussing her highly-publicized lack of promoting for the movie, she added: ‘Florence is one of the most in-demand actresses in the universe. She’s on set on Dune. I gather that some people expect for her to be engaging more on social media. I didn’t hire her to post. I hired her to act. She fulfilled every single expectation I had of her. That’s all that matters to me.’
Metro.co.uk has contacted reps for Olivia, Florence, Harry and Warner Brothers for a comment.
Don’t Worry Darling is in cinemas now.
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