This is The Friday Post, Hung Up’s weekly roundup of celebrity mess and miscellanea. If you like this kind of thing, why not subscribe?
I have never had any opinions on the monarchy, on the Queen, on goings-on of the royal family. My royal interest extends to Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi, and Oprah saying “were you silent or silenced?” and nothing else. (If you’re wondering about Hollywood Unlocked’s Jason Lee, who misreported the Queen’s death a few months ago, he is apparently threatening to dox the siblings accusing Tiffany Haddish of sexual harassment and battery.) Queen Elizabeth died as she lived: waiting for Beyoncé to release the Renaissance music videos.
And so, here on Hung Up, one thing about the queen’s death rollout: Olivia Wilde gets a few days worry-free.
Wilde’s Vanity Fair cover dropped this week — more on this later — but there’s one detail I cannot stop thinking about. Wilde talks about falling for Harry Styles and directing him in her movie. To show much of a feminist he is, she tells a story about explaining to Harry Styles what an apron is and Harry Styles agreeing to wear one in the movie.
Every bit of it, I love. He’s asking ‘why,’ presumably, like why would I have a problem with this. In response, she explains the use of an apron: “a practical thing to wipe your hands on.” And he just … wears it … like it’s no big deal? Remy walked so Harry Styles could soar.
What Paying Subscribers Got This Week
When I was in Italy last summer with the Succession-istas, I watched Alan Ruck play the “eldest son” scene live and was blown away. No one talks enough about how good he is imo! A little essay this week about him on Succession and him on The Dropout.
Plus: As for me and my house — darling — we ain’t worrying.
More on The Worrying, Darling
The first part of Wilde’s VF profile is more of that sentient ‘Future Is Female’ t-shirt-talk: the broad, general contours of Hollywood feminism. Wilde laments being an actress objectified in nude scenes: “You feel like you have to be this thing,” she begins, “so it’s therefore devoid of any real sexuality and it’s empty. And you feel, at the end of the day, what is the difference between me and a prostitute right now? Not much.” This isn’t specific to Wilde, but often it’s like Hollywood people only read half of a viral twitter thread about feminism in, like, 2018: we can talk about gratuitous, objectifying nude scenes without denigrating sex workers.
On the subject of Sudeikis, I was sympathetic. Serving her papers onstage, no asshole policy or not, was cruel. Her quote about not being surprised that her ex would orchestrate such a foul way of serving her custody papers (his camp has denied that he knew the server’s plans) is a repeat of what she told Variety, but it works: “There’s a reason that I didn’t stay in that relationship. Unfortunately, that was consistent with my experience of the relationship.” She also responds to people criticizing her mothering when she’s not with their kids. “When they are with their father, I trust him to be a great parent. So when they’re not with me, I continue to live my life. But the judgment I’ve seen from people for living my life…” She’s in an impossible position, divorcing the guy literally famous for playing a nice guy.
The Sudeikis fallout, the bad mothering criticisms — that’s something a male director wouldn’t be crucified for, wouldn’t have to answer questions about, wouldn't have to atone for in public. (I mean, hello, Brad Pitt. Tom Cruise?? If they’re asked about their kids, they are never asked about their parenting.)
But the Don’t Worry Darling of it all — *stares directly in Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga* People fussing while they’re making a movie and/or people fucking while they’re making a movie and/or people over-complimenting one another to promise you that absolutely nothing dramatic happened while they were making a movie — that’s amore.
The LaBeouf issue is thornier: “This issue is so much more nuanced than can be explained in private texts released out of context,” Wilde told the mag. “All I’ll say is he was replaced, and there was no going forward with him. I wish him the best in his recovery.” (For what it's worth, I keep hearing the same things over and over again: that Pugh did not want to work with LaBeouf because of his temper, that the cordial texts between them were selectively leaked, but that Wilde played his exit both ways — as a firebrand firing and as a diplomatic parting of ways.)
Someone asked me this week if Pugh gets dinged by all this. I can’t see how: from what I’ve heard, she was only annoyed at Wilde’s absence, not with the work itself. And these Miss Flo t-shirts are a slay:
I need this movie out now, like, as soon as possible. How much do you think it will open to? I’m betting it’s impressive. But a rollout this dramatic is certainly not by anyone’s design.
Ana de Armas Updates Update
The celebrated tastemaker/reporter/cultural critic Ana de Armas Updates granted an audience with an up and coming young actress known as Ana de Armas.
Exciting stuff for this young talent! I wish her the best!
Puth Puth Pass
The number of people who send me Charlie Puth’s little thirst traps and say “this your man?”
I must report that Charlie Puth has: worn me down. Nothing can shock me anymore. It has been so exhausting, so wrote, so utterly tedious that I have come around on the other side. Let the boy post what he wants. I don’t care. It is just, like, part of my life now, like Chrissy Teigen tweets. Or texts from brands.
Pussy Posse Productions
I’ve heard that Leo is dating Gigi Hadid (from a source that is not DeuxMoi, for what it’s worth), but what of the other members of the Pussy Posse?
Tobey Maguire, making his triumphant return to the big screen since Molly’s Game the Spider-Man movie he got the BBL for, is part of Damien Chazelle’s Babylon ensemble. Per Deadline: “The film led by Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Diego Calva is an original epic set in 1920s Los Angeles, as Tinseltown makes the transition from silent films to talkies. A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, it traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.”
Paramount released first look pics, but this was the only one I really cared about:
Taking this job right out from under Crispin Glover’s nose … naur it doesn’t sit right with me!
Babylon also has Pussy Posse king/sergeant at arms Lukas Haas, and associate member Ethan Suplee (never really part of the wolf pack, I believe, but in the bro-tation).
He Got Me With This One
No one in their right mind is looking forward to Todd Phillips’s Joker squeakquel. I think of the Joker squeakquel the way I think of getting a pap smear — an inevitability … never as bad as I think … just like something that we must go through.
But if the Joker squeakquel is a Catherine Keener movie: I’ll be there in the front row!
Fingers crossed this really is Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and she has the Diane Ladd role.
Martin Scorsese Glasses Watch
Ah, yes, speaking of Martin Scorsese movies. In a video tribute for the writer-director Paul Schrader, Martin Scorsese was: not wearing them, darling!
That’s it this week, thank you for reading! My entire personality has become the U.S. Open, so this weekend I will be watching tennis, and thinking of them:
REMY WALKED another iconic line from hh
You the baddest bc why did you STILL have the best take during Black Postcolonial Atlantic Queen’s Death Twitter Jubilee and it wasn’t even a tweet (Queen Elizabeth died as she lived: waiting for Beyoncé to release the Renaissance music videos)???!!!! Tens all around.