by Gill Pringle in LA
Olivia Wilde has never taken the easy path in Hollywood. Whether she’s acting in front of the camera or directing behind it, she’s consistently chosen projects that spark conversation.
After earning widespread praise for her directorial debut, Booksmart, and weathering the intense scrutiny that surrounded Don’t Worry Darling, Wilde returns with what many critics believe is her strongest film yet, The Invite.
If this dialogue-heavy, sexy, couples’ comedy seems like a departure from her last two films then she tells us that Rashida Jones and Will McCormack’s script hit the sweet spot for her personally.
“I grew up loving the movies of Mike Nichols and Woody Allen and Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron, and I love making comedies. I have been looking for something that would allow me to create an experience for actors that would be entirely focused on giving them the best possible environment for performance and for creating relationships,” says Wilde, 42, talking in Los Angeles.
“The thing that interests me most about directing is human relationships and telling stories about relationships. This film was a chance to say, ‘If the thing that interests me most is relationship dynamics, what if I just make a film where there’s nothing else but that?’” says the filmmaker whose own two-year relationship with Harry Styles came under intense scrutiny – especially from jealous One Direction fans.
But long before there was Harry – and even before her nine-year union with Jason Sudeikis – Wilde was fascinated by the nature of relationships, becoming a devotee of Belgian/American psychotherapist Esther Perel, known for her work on relationships.
“Esther Perel wrote a book 20 years ago called Mating in Captivity about sustaining eroticism in long-term relationships, and there is a lot of Esther’s philosophy all over this film, many of her different ideas,” Wilde says.
“She’s written other books about infidelity and has an amazing podcast too, but the thing that really stuck with me many years ago was her concept of how one can have multiple relationships within one relationship. I found that to be such an optimistic and realistic way of considering long-term commitment – that you cannot expect to never change and evolve; in fact, that’s a surefire way to fail in relationships. You are allowed to start a new relationship with that person, if you choose to, but it must be an active choice,” she enthuses. “So, that rocked my world many, many years ago, stuck with me, and then this film felt like a perfect place to put that philosophy.
“When we started the workshopping process, I reached out to Esther and asked her to be a consultant, and to my delight, she jumped in, and she became the basis of Penélope’s character as well,” Wilde says referring to Penelope Cruz’s sexually open character Piña, who is in a newish relationship with Edward Norton’s Hawk.
Their liberated attitudes are in stark contrast to Wilde and Seth Rogen’s uptight married couple Joe and Angela, who now spend more time bickering than they do in the bedroom.
Joe and Angela have regularly heard the other couple’s noisy sex play from the flat above and invite them to supper, only to learn that their new neighbours are swingers.
“Penélope is playing Esther in many ways, and also personalising it, of course, but it was important to me that while making these statements about relationships, that we not just wing it, that it came from someone who had spent over 20 years researching what relationships are made of, and what often makes them fail,” she says.
The Invite is based on Cesc Gay’s original Spanish film, The People Upstairs, which was also adapted into French, German, South Korean and Italian versions, demonstrating the huge global appetite for relationship stories.
“I find it fascinating that the concept is very differently interpreted – and each movie’s very, very different. Can you sustain intimacy in relationships remains the core question, yet it’s interpreted very differently in each of these countries.
“But we really went nuts with our version, which is largely based in Esther’s philosophy,” Wilde says.
Jones and McCormack’s script arrived just at the right time for the filmmaker: “For a long time, I’ve been looking for something that would allow me to shoot in order, because that was always a real fantasy of mine.
“Typically, we never shoot anything in order, because it’s logistically impossible, and I have always wanted to find something that would allow me to approach it like a play – rehearse, shoot in order, and shoot it on film. So those were the dreams, but I thought, that’s impossible, I’m not going to find something that will allow for that.
“And then I received Rashida and Will’s adaptation, and I laughed so hard, and I thought this could allow for that experiment, and if I gather the greatest actors in the world, maybe we can get together and workshop this and make it something that’s very personal and very different from anything I’ve done, but what I’ve always dreamed of doing,” she says.
Naturally, she was thrilled at securing such a dream cast.
“I like to say that Seth and I are in the same high school class that can’t graduate, like we’ve been in the same part of this Hollywood generation for 25 years, and we all have seen each other just evolve into very different types of people.
“So, with Seth, I knew I was going to achieve great things from the jump; he was clearly so brilliant. I remember auditioning for Knocked Up. We read together several times. We clearly had chemistry and respected each other, and obviously that wasn’t where we were meant to work together, but we kept an eye on each other. But not till The Studio did we work together, and then it was just the most fun experience. It made me fall in love with acting again. It was only two days, but I was like, ‘I forgot it can be this fun’. And he has that effect on people. It was during my days on The Studio when I realised I needed Seth to be in this movie, even though I wasn’t supposed to be in it. Because I feel like Seth is in his Albert Brooks era, and there’s nothing better than that.
“Then I convinced him to do it through describing the process – and I love when people are in such a good place in their careers that they only do things that they genuinely want to do because of the process and not the result – because they approach things with much better attitudes, and he’s very Zen, and he jumped on board and ended up really reimagining this script together with me and Rashida and Will,” says Wilde whose first big break came 19 years earlier playing “Thirteen” on TV drama series, House, going on to appear in Year One, Cowboys & Aliens and Disney’s Tron: Legacy.
“And then, of course, Edward and Penélope. I got a call saying ‘Edward Norton would like to have a phone call with you about this movie’. And I was like, ‘What?’ And he said: ‘I love the original Spanish film. I want to read this adaptation, and I have ideas of how we could turn this into something new and fresh together’.
“I can’t even describe to you how different that character was before Edward made it into Hawk. His name was like Lance, and he was the hot young firefighter from upstairs, and he was not nearly as nuanced, but Edward brought so much specificity.
“And of course, then my queen, Penélope, who is a comedian, has always been a comedian, has been obviously very funny in many Pedro Almodóvar films, as well as other films, and of course, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but a couple years ago I saw her in a film called Official Competition, another Spanish film, and she is so funny in that role, and I was like, ‘this is the world’s greatest comedian, can we please put her in more comedies’, and she just took this thing and ran away with it,” says Wilde.
The Invite is in cinemas 9 July 2026
