Olivia Wilde explains why ‘The Invite’ is devoted to Diane Keaton
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Actress Olivia Wilde, who bought her begin placing on exhibits at Phillips Academy in Andover, explains why it is so enjoyable to play a personality struggling to “hold their s*** collectively” in “The Invite.”
Olivia Wilde’s new film “The Invite” is basically a stage play placed on movie.
Minus a short opening scene, everything of “The Invite” takes place in a single condo. Angela (Wilde) and Joe (Seth Rogen) are a long-married couple who, primarily based on their fixed arguing, ought to in all probability think about divorce.
The most recent catalyst of their routine bickering? With out consulting Joe, Angela has invited their upstairs neighbors (Edward Norton and Penélope Cruz) to an intimate feast. (Gentle spoiler: The phrase “intimate” carries a double that means.)
Although the couple’s condo is meticulously designed, the units are spare sufficient that they could possibly be re-created in a black field theater. And the movie’s dialogue, co-written by Rashida Jones (“Parks & Recreation”) and Will McCormack (“Toy Story 4”) crackles with a passive-aggressive depth that would carry to a budget seats.
The strategy is smart, on condition that “The Invite” is predicated on the Catalan play “Els Veïns de Dalt” (“The Upstairs Neighbors”), which later grew to become the 2020 Spanish movie “Sentimental.” But it surely additionally is smart that Wilde — directing her third function movie after the 2019 comedy “Booksmart” and the 2022 thriller “Don’t Fear Darling” — was drawn to the fabric.
Earlier than she started performing professionally as a youngster in movies like “The Woman Subsequent Door” and exhibits like “The O.C.,” Wilde attended Phillips Academy in Andover, the place she was wowed by the college’s rigorous strategy to tremendous arts.
“That they had what, to my 13-year-old thoughts, was not like something I had ever skilled,” Wilde informed Boston.com. “That they had a essential stage theater, they’d studio theaters, black field theaters. I’ve been performing for a very long time, however I had by no means had entry to services like that.
“You bought actual skilled expertise,” Wilde continued. “Skilled that means not truly skilled, however I used to be in a scholar producer program, and we produced about 12 exhibits a 12 months. It was sturdy, supportive, and artistic, and I beloved that.”
With the arrival of “The Invite” on digital demand after a profitable theatrical run earlier this summer season, Wilde sat down with Boston.com to speak about improvising with Seth Rogen, taking part in a personality desperately attempting to “hold their s*** collectively,” and why “The Invite” is devoted to Diane Keaton.
Be aware: This interview has been flippantly edited and condensed for size and readability.
All 4 performances on this film are nice, however I actually responded to your character specifically. How do you get into the headspace of this character who’s wracked by this bone-deep nervousness and pathological people-pleasing?
Wilde: I feel it’s actually enjoyable to observe somebody working very exhausting at one thing. In the event you’re watching a movie a couple of live performance pianist and also you’re watching them work very exhausting to create [music], it’s thrilling to see that effort on display. It’s a core human high quality.
I really like the thought of watching somebody who has to work equally exhausting to maintain their s*** collectively.
For me, that character was all in regards to the effort it takes to remain in management and the big quantity of tension she’s coping with, together with the fixed effort to hide it.
I additionally beloved the concept that she would change a lot by the top of the movie as soon as she confronts her worst concern, which is dropping management. As soon as that occurs, you sense this type of exhale, this launch. And you’ve got hope for her, whether or not meaning she stays on this relationship or not.
Was it at all times the plan to have the lead position in “The Invite” together with directing it? Was that one thing you advocated for?
Wilde: No, I didn’t advocate. The solid requested me to do it.
Oh, actually?
Wilde: Completely. I didn’t have any intention of taking part in the lead position in any respect.
In that case, what was it that attracted you to Rashida and Will’s script as a director?
Wilde: After I learn the screenplay, I used to be so excited in regards to the alternative it introduced for one thing actually unique, not solely by way of the fabric itself, however by way of the expertise I had at all times actually wished to have as a director: To assemble a bunch of actors and shoot one thing so as, having rehearsed the movie forward of time, and to do this on 35 mm.
I assume that taking pictures all the pieces so as helped make it really feel extra like a play?
Wilde: Yeah! None of us had ever shot something so as. But it surely allowed for this expertise that I’ve at all times wished to have, and Penélope, Edward, and Seth have been all actually obsessed with it. We felt like a small theater firm coming collectively to do one thing that will be totally targeted on the method, versus making one thing targeted on a outcome.
It definitely felt very private.
The characters that Edward, Seth, and Penélope play usually are not characters that anybody else was ever going to play. They reshaped them into their very own concepts, and it was so thrilling. I’m an enormous fan of [Hong Kong filmmaker] Wong Kar-Wai, and he talks about the way you don’t know what a movie is till your actor tells you what it’s, and also you don’t know who a personality is till your actor embodies them.
As a result of good artwork is confession, and seeing that sort of course of occur was fascinating. Seeing all of us actually pouring ourselves into these characters and being fairly susceptible at instances was thrilling.
You simply talked about Wong Kar-Wai. After I was watching, I considered “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and Mike Nichols. Was he in your thoughts as you made “The Invite”?
Wilde: I imply, I’m a significant Mike Nichols fan. He’s my essential supply of inspiration. I feel he’s the GOAT. For me, “Virginia Woolf” was my North star, and we very purposefully planted Easter eggs all through the movie which can be very particular references for the actual “Virginia Woolf” followers on the market — issues within the manufacturing design, refined little clues within the script.
However I additionally drew from different Nichols motion pictures. I feel each the cinematography of “The Graduate” and the method of “The Graduate,” which concerned lots of rehearsal. After which “The Birdcage,” which is the last word chaotic feast comedy of errors that has actual soul and coronary heart to it. It’s all about household ultimately, and I feel that our movie actually was striving to have that very same sort of contexture of heartbreak mixed with lots of hilarity.
On the finish of the movie, there’s a title card devoted to “Diane.” Was that Diane Keaton?
Wilde: Sure.
Are you able to talk about what she meant to you, or what she impressed in “The Invite” specifically?
Wilde: Diane Keaton is a supply of inspiration to me, not solely as somebody who I had the possibility to work with, and who was a really variety and supportive particular person on this enterprise. She actually inspired me to be daring, and to take my voice severely, and definitely inspired me to direct.
She additionally was fully singular in the best way she approached her work and the characters she created. I don’t assume “The Invite” would exist with out the movies of Diane Keaton.
Clearly “Annie Corridor” was an affect on my character specifically. Diane would play these ladies who have been deeply fractured, however extremely gentle — a mix of shards of tension, however wrapped in one thing very tender. She was so empathetic in the direction of her characters, and was simply so humorous.
I simply don’t assume I may have made it with out the affect she had on me as an actor and as an individual, so it felt applicable.
I actually loved this film, and actually loved seeing a film simply totally targeted on adults, telling an grownup story. Is that one thing that you just’re actually attempting to champion?
Wilde: It’s humorous, as a result of once I made “Booksmart,” I wished to inform a narrative about youngsters that isn’t in any respect patronizing in the best way that some teenage content material is. I wished to get again into the mindset of my teenage self, and provides it the sort of excessive stakes it deserves, as a result of that’s how it will really feel.
For “The Invite,” I wished to play a personality who was my very own age and to inform a narrative about relationships at a sure level in life. It’s not the very starting of the connection, it’s not about once you’re having a baby, it’s not about outdated age. It’s this center half, the place individuals typically lose a way of function. They’ve efficiently merged lives, which was what they have been informed to do to be a profitable married couple. And but that leaves lots of people feeling actually unsteady, as a result of they don’t know who they’re individually anymore.
I feel that’s an attention-grabbing a part of life. I’ve beloved motion pictures about that a part of life for a very long time, however I used to be excited to have the ability to inform it my method. Despite the fact that you assume, Oh, I’m an grownup now, that is an grownup story, you’re nonetheless naive. And there’s nonetheless a lot to study.
“The Invite” is out there to hire on most main platforms.
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