'Don't Worry Darling' Cast Delivers Awkward Venice Film Festival Appearance

Well, it looks like all the rumors are true…the Don’t Worry Darling cast really is that dysfunctional.

Source: Stefania D’Alessandro / Getty

Don’t Worry Darling first made headlines in 2020, when rumors started swirling that the film’s director, Olivia Wilde, was romantically involved with the lead in her movie, Harry Styles. Soon thereafter, Wilde announced her split from longtime fiancé Jason Sudeikis, Olivia and Harry confirmed their relationship with public outings, and the rest of the DWD drama followed behind.

On Monday, fans got to see the cast together for the first time during an absolutely awkward press conference at Venice Film Festival, seemingly confirming just how much drama went on behind the scenes. Of course, none of the cast actually addressed the drama head-on, but some of the interactions onlookers caught on camera are just too insane to ignore.

The first–and probably the most surprising–moment came from a video of Styles sitting down in the Salle Grande for a screening of the movie, where he appears to spit on his co-star Chris Pine. While some fans have tried to argue that there’s no way Harry’s random mouth gesture was actually spitting, Pine’s reaction definitely suggests that’s exactly what happened.

Another awkward (but definitely more expected) moment came from Florence Pugh, who received a ton of cheers and applause from the audience after they viewed the film. As she stood by among the rest of the cast, she can be seen throwing kisses to the crowd and laughing with co-star Nick Kroll–but she completely avoids eye contact with her director, Olivia Wilde.

There are a lot of rumored reasons as to why Pugh and Wilde seemingly don’t like one another, including the idea that Olivia’s on-set relationship with Harry Styles (allegedly) overlapped with her engagement to Sudeikis. Plus, there’s the whole drama with Wilde, Pugh, and Shia LaBeouf, who was originally supposed to be the movie’s star opposite Florence.

To make matters even more confusing, Olivia and Harry didn’t interact once throughout the screening or press conference, making fans wonder if there’s trouble in paradise among all the other hoopla looming over the cast.

Even stylists are getting involved in the back and forth, with Florence Pugh’s stylist captioning a photo of her in Venice with “Miss Flo,” a reference to what Wilde condescendingly called her in a video about the Shia LaBeouf drama.

Wilde’s stylist even issued a short response,  writing an ominous post on her IG Story that reads, “There’s always more to the story…”

With the way the cast has been interacting–or rather, not interacting–this weekend, it looks like this drama is far from over. One thing is for sure, if they’re not already making a documentary about the making of Don’t Worry Darling and all the issues behind the scenes…they should start now.