Olivia Wilde breaks down why authentic intimacy is Hollywood’s new focus.
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Wilde’s New Take
Olivia Wilde spent the past year on either side of the camera investigating the subject Hollywood is currently obsessed with: how to portray relationships and the all-important intimacy that goes with them.
Between starring in Gregg Araki’s Sundance sex comedy I Want Your Sex and directing her own film The Invite, Wilde examines the state of the age-gap romance genre and how it reflects the desires of modern audiences.
A Changing Trend
“The problem with the old age-gap romance is that it was so one-dimensional,” Wilde said of the current crop of movies and TV shows queuing up for release.
The actress-turned-director is quick to praise the shift in the genre, which is moving away from the tried-and-true formula of an older man preying on a naive young woman and seeking to explore far more diverse relationships, as seen in the recent example of the Halina Reijn-written and -directed Babygirl.
Gen Z’s Real Ask
At the Sundance Film Festival premiere of I Want Your Sex, Wilde doubled down on the reasons why the amorous advances of men half her age (and occasionally her age) are so fascinating to females of her generation.
“There is so much sex in movies,” Wilde said, citing a UCLA study claiming that nearly 50 percent of Gen Zers felt that cinema and TV had too much sex in them.
“Sex is not the problem; realism is the problem. I feel like we have had 50 years of unrealistic sex, and I think people want something different now,” Wilde added.
Playing With Power
The quote could almost serve as a tagline for I Want Your Sex, which features Wilde as an arrogant and unapologetic nymphomaniac who begins an intense affair with a young intern (played by Cooper Hoffman).
As the relationship between the free-spirited Erika Tracy and the far more self-aware Elliot begins, so does the clash of their wildly different generations, with Wilde playing the more confident and uninhibited partner.
Other stars in the film include Chase Sui Wonders, Mason Gooding, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho, and Charli XCX.
Directing Her Own
Meanwhile, in The Invite, Wilde explores another side of the age-gap romance, this time looking at the relationship between a married couple struggling to reconnect and having turned to regularly inviting their neighbors over for sex, hoping to spice things up and address their concerns.
“It’s such a goofy movie. I also felt like it had a different tone than I Want Your Sex, but they’re both about my twenties and thirties,” Wilde said of her directorial debut, which marks her first film since becoming a mother.
Two Sides, One Theme
“I think it captures where a lot of couples are now,” Wilde added. “Sex is not a priority; it’s more of a sideshow. A lot of us are entering this next phase of our lives and thinking about what comes after sex.”
Wilde sees her two films as two sides of the same coin, with I Want Your Sex being an exploration of her younger self and The Invite focusing on her present self.
A Fitting Messenger
With Wilde’s own real-life relationship with her husband and frequent collaborator Jason Schwartzman being one of the most high-profile age-gap romances in Hollywood today, her thoughts on the matter certainly resonate beyond just the press circuit.
Whether audiences will embrace her message through the films is a different matter, but Wilde clearly believes that in the future, only realistic portrayals of romance and sex will suffice.
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