Olivia Wilde Breaks Down 'Don't Worry Darling' Dinner Party Scene

Hi, I'm Olivia Wilde,

director of Don't Worry Darling,

and this is Notes On a Scene.

Yes, I did go out there and I went to headquarters

and I saw what he's hiding.

What I'm hiding? He's lying to us.

He's lying to all of us Oh, dear.

about what the Victory Project actually is.

He's trapped us here. Alice.

Trapped?

This point in the film,

we're about halfway through our story.

Our heroin, Alice,

played by Florence Pugh,

has decided to confront Frank,

played by Chris Pine,

who is this menacing overlord of this community

in which she lives.

He's lying to all of us. Get ahold of yourself,

Alice.

Bunny,

your best friend,

is worried about you.

She thinks that you need help.

Is that why she's not here tonight?

We are asking the audience to focus for several minutes

on a group of people sitting around a table.

That can be really terrifying 'cause you think,

Well, inevitably,

the audience is gonna get kind of bored.

And so you have to continue to inject energy into the scene

with everything,

with the performance,

with the music,

with the work of the cameras.

Because you didn't wanna be reminded.

He's using you.

He's using all of us.

Do you even know what the Victory Project actually is?

Have you ever asked?

Do you?

This shot,

Alice's closeup,

was one that I found myself continuing to come back to

over and over again in the edit.

This closeup contains multitudes.

She is feeling all of the high stakes of this moment.

You can feel all of the tension in her eyes.

What we have here is the fire in the background,

which is sort of flaming behind her.

This was not only providing this glow onto her,

but it's also a menacing sense of doom.

I think one piece of advice I would give to any director

who's building a house on a stage

and they want it to seem authentic is put a fireplace in

because people just assume that that makes it real. [laughs]

One thing about having real fire on your set

is that sometimes it might flare up

and actually change the set itself.

And we had a moment,

nobody got hurt,

but there was kind of a large explosion that happened

in this fireplace.

So, if you look in this frame,

you will notice that there's no black charring of the brick

on the fireplace.

But if I move forward just a little bit,

you can see that this fireplace is now black,

charred,

which I kind of loved.

At one point, everybody freaked out.

Anna Rain, our incredible script supervisor,

came up to me and said,

Olivia, Olivia, Olivia,

we can't use it.

That the fireplace is a different color.

It's all black now.

And I thought,

But that's amazing,

because emotionally,

what has happened to Alice in this moment,

is she has been kind of scorched.

I really loved it.

And I was like, We'll just take credit for it

and say that it was entirely intentional

like every other mistake that happened on set.

You'll notice the framing on Frank and the framing on Alice

is identical.

They are equals in this moment.

The rest of the film they are never equals.

Frank always is the overlord over the rest

of the characters.

He's always kind of looming over them.

He's larger than life.

Is that why you went out there to headquarters?

John Powell, our composer,

and I,

we wanted the suspense to build as you would build it

for a battle scene.

It completely transformed the scene.

So at this moment,

the score very much grinds to a halt.

And there's this moment of this strings going.

[imitates whirring]

Is that why you went out there to headquarters?

He's now revealed her crime to the community,

so these reactions were absolute gold to me.

And the fact that they happened in unison.

There's this slow turn.

She now knows that she is potentially

at risk of her community turning against her.

And what's happened is that her greatest ally,

who is Jack, her husband,

Harry Styles,

if she loses him on her team,

she's then completely isolated.

So what I loved is this rack focus from the ensemble

in the back,

back to our heroes here in the foreground.

This is Alice and Jack's movie.

We've been connected to them as a unit for most of the film.

I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry, but you don't know what he's doing.

You don't know

what you're apart of. You wandered out

by yourself.

You ignored every rule

and she put all of your lives in danger.

That flick of his eyes there,

just on a performance level,

is something that I absolutely love that Chris Pine

put in there.

He's checking in to see if this is working.

He has successfully turned them against Alice

and that little flick of his eyes to the left

shows us he's clocking that it's working.

On a performance level,

this is just something that I find really incredible

about Chris Pine and the way that he played Frank.

He understood that the most terrifying

and the most powerful way to play this character

was to do it very quietly,

because powerful people never have to raise their voice.

He also is aware that his control over this community

has a lot to do with his voice

and the way he seems to communicate with them,

each individually,

which is a very cult leader thing to do.

And so he's checking in with them,

making sure that they're looking at him.

I hope no one feels trapped.

Do you feel trapped, Violet?

Asking them questions makes them feel special

because he's giving them special focus and attention.

Similarly, she looks around and sees she's lost them.

Yes, I did go out there and I went to headquarters

and I saw what he's hiding.

He's lying to us. What I'm hiding?

He's lying to all of us Oh, dear.

About what the Victory Project actually is.

He's trapped us here.

Trapped?

I hope no one feels trapped.

Do you feel trapped, Violet?

They're also connected at this point.

All the men and the women are kind of a unit together.

And I loved this reaction.

When I saw this reaction,

I made a note in the script.

I said, trailer moment. [laughs]

It was in fact in our first trailer.

The combination of fear and anger in their eyes

is exactly what I wanted.

One thing that I really love about this scene

are the colors.

Alex Bickel, my colors and I,

brought out the green here in the curtains

that contrast with the red.

Our production designer,

Katie Byron and I,

really worked very hard to create this house.

Many people think this is a real house out in Palm Springs.

So one thing about this shot,

is it really shows the depth of this set.

There's so many layers to it.

There's so many different environments

within this environment.

I will also mention that this was done

on an extremely tight budget

and just amazing work of this art department.

I just think about every time I look at these shots

that if you go to the trouble of creating these details

everywhere just makes a difference.

He's lying to all of us Oh, dear.

About what the Victory Project actually is.

He's trapped us here.

Trapped?

The trick to creating tension is making sure

that everybody is able to create this

collective tone together.

The idea is that the air in the room at this point is thick.

And I think creating tone for any scene,

as a director,

is really about communication so that everybody in the room

knows the stakes of the scene.

And it was definitely a scene that required

a lot of exploration for each actor into

what they were bringing into this scene.

For Harry as Jack,

it was this desperation to control Alice,

who is putting everything that he's built,

up until this point,

at risk.

And he doesn't understand why she's doing this.

And on top of that,

is the deep betrayal that is revealed

that she went out to headquarters.

The one promise they all make to each other

that they will never do.

Is that why you went out there to headquarters?

In a scene like this,

where so many of the actors in the scene

are actually acting nonverbally,

each of these actors came to the table,

quite literally,

with very different levels of acting experience.

Even if you don't have any lines in the scene,

you can be such a huge part of that scene and be so active.

And that's what six out of eight actors

were doing in the scene.

They were completely involved and driving the scene

without having to say anything.

Originally in this scene,

the character that I play is supposed to be in this scene,

but I knew this one,

I had to be at the monitor

so that I could give each actor the attention

they really deserved and to watch them very closely.

There is a moment when Alice and Frank

speak over each other,

trying desperately to pull the group over onto their side.

And at that point,

it became not only a challenge for them as actors,

but for our sound department.

And I saw what he's hiding. What I'm hiding?

He's lying to us. Oh, dear.

He's lying to all of us about what the Victory Project

actually is.

He's trapped us here.

[laughs] I would like to give a shout out

to my sound mixer, Steve Morrow,

who's one of the only sound mixers who says,

It's fine if everybody talks at the same time,

so that we were able to have this very natural,

almost Robert Altman-like,

overlapping of dialogue which just feels much more real.

I hope no one feels trapped.

Do you feel trapped, Violet?

Peg?

This is your psychosis.

There is enough tension amongst the group

that people are starting to choose with whom

they're going to align themselves.

We get a sense Frank might be winning,

but we're sort of hoping he doesn't.

You're experiencing trust as a feeling of entrapment

yet you trust every day.

We all do.

The rage Alice feels in this moment

is the rage of women for centuries who have been discredited

through gas lighting.

She, at this point,

has the choice.

She can bottle this rage and abandon this battle

and surrender,

or she can keep going.

So in the conversations with Flo,

we knew this was the point when she kind of unleashes

a lot of the tension that she and the audience

have built together.

This desire for her to break out and to speak her truth.

So it's a release,

which is very satisfying,

but at the same time,

very, very dangerous.

Tonight, you've trusted us in your home,

just like I trusted you in my bedroom.

This was a moment for Harry,

playing Jack,

to really let this sense of betrayal land.

We want the audience to feel this deep heart break.

Often, in these nonverbal moments

that less-experienced actors kind of flail,

because they don't feel the safety of the flotation device

that is dialogue.

If you don't have lines,

you really just have to communicate at all with your eyes,

with your energy.

No easy feat for any actor,

even if they're really experienced.

Harry, at this point,

was not extremely experienced.

This was his second film.

And this moment was one that really allowed

an emotional insight into his character.

Just like I trusted you in my bedroom.

So, this reaction was very important.

It's the first time in a while in the scene

that we've opened up the frame to the rest of the ensemble

at once.

So now we're having a chance to see how everyone reacts

to this.

The most important reaction at this point is Jack,

because at this point,

this is when we desperately don't want Frank

to be able to get in between these two

who we really want to stay together.

And instead, Frank is creating this bond here.

One thing that this frame also allows for

is the ability to see this meal in front of them

at this point,

which is this massive, raw fish.

The biblical metaphor is pretty clear at that point

as a sort of Last Supper reference,

but it's also a testament to our actors and their focus

to be able to shoot a scene for an entire day

in front of a giant raw fish.

And it's also a testament to our props department

for keeping this food fresh and consistent

in terms of continuity.

Not an easy thing to do.

Continuity in a dinner scene is everybody's nightmare.

[Frank] Alice?

It's funny how you can imagine a scene

and you can storyboard a scene

and it will never be how it ends up looking

because you have to respond to the magic that happens

on the day.

The chemical reaction of these actors working together

completely changed the way the scene was going to look.

If I had stuck to my plan,

I never would have gotten to the real meat of this scene

that is actually so satisfying to watch.

This scene took all day long

and I would've loved seven days for this scene.

I knew that I would only have a day,

and so I asked quite a lot of the actors to come prepared,

come ready,

come focused.

And they absolutely did,

and they delivered in a way that would just far surpass

my expectations.