A Run Down of the Drama Surrounding “Don’t Worry Darling”
Did Harry Styles actually spit on Chris Pine?
by AVA POETA ★ SEPTEMBER 20, 2022
As most of us know, or don’t know, Don’t Worry Darling’s filming and press tour has been nothing short of dramatic. The soon-to-be-released thriller contains so many of our favorite actors, but by the looks of it, they are not as excited about this movie as we are. The drama centers around four well-known Hollywood names: Olivia Wilde, director and accused “fake-feminist,” Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, and Shia LeBeouf. In case you missed it, here is a short guide to all the drama surrounding this film.
Credit: IMDb
Filming: October 2020-February 2021
Let’s just get right into it. Filming for Don’t Worry Darling started in October 2020, but this movie has been messy from the start. Shia LeBeouf was set to star in the movie alongside Florence Pugh but apparently was fired because Pugh was not comfortable working with him so intimately. LeBeouf has piles of harassment claims against him, so no one was surprised when this news came out. He was then replaced by the British bombshell himself, Harry Styles.
Why Styles? Rumor has it that after Olivia Wilde was in the process of divorcing her then-fiancé Jason Sudeikis, she was ready to start dating again, with her sights set on Styles. I mean, we really don’t blame her. Soon after filming began, the allegations that Styles and Wilde were getting real close on set started, and that’s when everything started going downhill.
With Wilde so wrapped up with Styles, production on set wasn’t really up to par. Most of the actors, especially Florence Pugh, were getting very irritated. But honestly, who is surprised? The movie that has been in production for a while now is continuously being pushed back. Pugh, who is good friends with Wilde’s now ex-fiancé, then took up more of a directorial role.
Credit: IMDb
August 2020
Messy, messy, messy. It comes out that apparently, Shia LeBeouf actually was not fired from the film. He quit. And he did not go quietly. He released dozens of texts and videos with him Wilde, one of them showing Wilde basically begging on her hands and knees for LeBeouf not to quit. She went so far as to call it a “… wake-up call for Miss Flo.” This is not the best look for Wilde, given that she supposedly fired LeBeouf because of his intense method of acting and was supporting Florence Pugh. Like I said, drama.
August 2022
Things quieted down a little after filming, but in August 2022, when the press began, everything went from a mess to an absolute dumpster fire. Florence Pugh stopped promoting the movie altogether. You could not find her even mentioning the film. If something was released, she promoted other work that she was a part of. No Instagram posts, Twitter mentions, nothing. This is a shock, considering one, she’s the star, and two, the teaser trailer for the film had recently been released and everyone was dying over her and Harry Styles’ on-screen romance. With that said, the half-British half-American accent he takes on in the movie is a bit questionable.
September 2022
The Venice Film Festival. All eyes are on this cast. Who’s going to show up and what’s going to go down?
For starters, Styles and Olivia Wilde do not arrive together. Next, to everyone’s surprise, Florence Pugh makes a stunning appearance in a Valentino black and glitter-printed tulle dress. In her stylist’s Instagram post, she captioned the photo “Miss Flo.” Iconic.
Also at the festival, actors Gemma Chan and Chris Pine were acting as literal human buffers. Not once did Styles, Pugh, or Wilde even glance in each other’s direction.
Credit: Complex
During the actual screening, Harry Styles made headlines due to a video of him supposedly spitting on Chris Pine as Styles sits down. He addressed this at his Madison Square Garden concert the next day, saying something along the lines of, “I took a trip to Venice to spit on Chris Pine” (just the type of rumor humor we love to see).
Last but not least, the movie premiered; it earned four straight minutes of applause. But it ended due to Pugh leaving three minutes into the applause, with her actors following suit.
The jury’s out on if the movie will be as amazing as Olivia Wilde claims it to be, but if you want to watch it for yourself, it comes out in theaters on September 23rd. We know we’re excited and I can’t wait to see everyone front and center for not only Harry Styles' performance but Florence Pugh's as well.
So, there you have it. Maybe we should be worrying.
Cover Photo Credit: IMDb