>Apr 26, 2022 6:11pm PT

>Harry Styles and Florence Pugh Get Hot and Heavy in Olivia Wilde’s ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ Sneak Peek

>Wilde shed a little light on the idea behind “Don’t Worry Darling,” which is inspired by “Inception,” “The Matrix” and “The Truman Show.” She calls the movie “a love letter to movies that push the boundaries of our imagination.”

>Wilde also highly praised her actors (who were not in attendance during Warner Bros.’ presentation on Tuesday night), referring to pop sensation Styles as “an up-and-coming actor with no other career that I am aware of, and he is nothing short of a revelation in this part.”

>But in the age of social media, rumors can take on a whole other life. For “Don’t Worry Darling,” internet sleuths have dissected each and every detail since the very first announcement of the film’s existence. After Wilde posted on Instagram an adoring behind-the-scenes photo of Pugh at work, TikTokers noticed that Pugh didn’t share anything about the film in return. The internet theorizing has run rampant, and Page Six ran an anonymously sourced story claiming that Pugh was unhappy about Wilde and Styles’ relationship. Then came a report that Styles was being paid more than three times the amount Pugh was getting paid.

>Wilde denies that, saying in an email later, “There has been a lot out there that I largely don’t pay attention to. But the absurdity of invented clickbait and subsequent reaction regarding a nonexistent pay disparity between our lead and supporting actors really upset me. I’m a woman who has been in this business for over 20 years, and it’s something that I have fought for myself and others, especially being a director. There is absolutely no validity to those claims.”

>“She was really a great supporter of his as someone who was newer to a film set. And he was such a great supporter of hers, as someone who understood it was her film.”

>Eventually, Shia LaBeouf landed the part...

>“I was also thinking a lot about my place in society as someone who could rage against the patriarchy but in many ways totally benefits from it.”

>“I don’t enjoy or feel inspired by stories that oversimplify feminism. It’s so much more complicated.”

>She brought on Katie Silberman, her partner from “Booksmart,” to rewrite what became the current screenplay.

>They also went down the rabbit hole of what Wilde calls the “disenfranchised world of white men on the internet,” scouring 4chan...

>“Paradise as defined by the largely monogamous, misogynistic media and world that we’ve grown up with.”

>“My version of paradise is very nostalgic and actually comes from a world that doesn’t serve me as a woman at all,” she says. “We can talk about our complicity. Or someone who’s willing to burn the whole motherfucker down.”