Olivia Wilde is in the midst of directing Don't Worry Darling, which stars Florence Pugh alongside her new boyfriend Harry Styles.
She gushed over her on-set experience with the 27-year-old “Watermelon Sugar” singer in an Instagram post on Monday (Feb. 15, 2021), which featured a black-and-white photo of Styles in a vintage convertible.
“Little known fact: most male actors don’t want to play supporting roles in female-led films. The industry has raised them to believe it lessens their power (i.e financial value) to accept these roles, which is one of the reasons it’s so hard to get financing for movies focusing on female stories,” she captioned the photo.
“No joke, it is harrrrrd to find actors who recognize why it might be worth it to allow for a woman to hold the spotlight.” Enter: @harrystyles, our ‘Jack,'” Wilde continued. “Not only did he relish the opportunity to allow for the brilliant @florencepugh to hold center stage as our ‘Alice', but he infused every scene with a nuanced sense of humanity.
He didn’t have to join our circus, but he jumped on board with humility and grace, and blew us away every day with his talent, warmth, and ability to drive backwards.”
While I am thrilled that Harry Styles has humility, grace, talent, and warmth, I do think Wilde is going overboard in her praising of Styles for taking a supporting role in a movie. Which is basically what he did. If he had not been cast, Wilde would have cast another actor in the same role. After all, he did replace Shia LaBeouf in the role who, while being an incredibly awful person, is an established actor.
Styles also did his job as a supporting actor by letting the lead actress, Florence Pough, “hold center stage.” The praise is also a bit hollow as Wilde and Styles are dating. I'm sure Styles will end up giving an amazing performance in Don't Worry Darling, which is wonderful, but that is what he was hired to do.
