Olivia Wilde reacts to being compared to Gollum after viral interview appearance sparked concern
Olivia Wilde has reacted to the wild Gollum comparisons made on social media.
The Change-Up actor, 42, took to Instagram Stories over the weekend (2 May), to address the viral interview she did last month (24 April).
Wilde was answering questions about her new movie The Invite at the the San Francisco International Film Festival, when during a red carpet discussion with the San Francisco Chronicle, some viewers thought she looked like the Lord of the Rings character.
“The cameraman really doing a disservice here,” one person penned, while another added: “She looks as if she had found the one ring.”
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“Pretty soon this will be Olivia Wilde's next transformation,” someone else said alongside a side-by-side pic.
“She is definitely holding on to the one ring looking like that.”
'It was a fish-eye lens'
Wilde captioned her video response: “Leave it to your little brother to give you the maximum amount of s**t.”
Her brother, Charlie Cockburn, is heard asking: “Olivia Wilde, do you care to address recent rumors that you're a resurrected corpse?”
"Listen, that's a fish-eye lens. And I admit, is that my best angle? Was that my best-ever look? No. No, it's startling. It's a startling image,” the Don't Worry Darling director responded.
“It was a fish-eye lens. I don't know why I was so close to the camera. I didn't have to be. That's not the truth,” Wilde added as she and her brother laughed.
“Do you have any more questions?” she continued, before adding, “I'm not dead.”
Wilde directs her third movie
The Invite is her third time directing after 2010's Booksmart and 2022's Don't Worry Darling.
The film, which received a standing ovation at the the Sundance Film Festival in January, is adapted from 2020's The People Upstairs.
It follows a married couple (Wilde and Seth Rogen) who are invited to a dinner party by their neighbours which spirals unexpectedly.
Rogen plays Wilde's beau, while Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton portray another couple.
"I feel like a director who is lucky enough to occasionally get to act with really great people. And this movie was an opportunity to act with some of my favorite actors of all time," she said on Jake's Takes.
Why Wilde decided to also act in The Invite
Wilde went on to explain why she decided to also put herself in the film: "It was the actors who came to me and asked if I would play the role because we had been workshopping the material together at that point for a while.
"And we really understood it together, and it felt natural that I would jump in as their scene partner because I knew what
what we were trying to say and we all, at that point, had just melded into this family.
"So when they called me and said, 'Olivia, we want you to do it', I was so moved because, again, like I worship these people, right?
"So it was very cool and we had so much fun."
The Invite comes out on 26 June 2026.
Topics: Celebrity, Lord Of The Rings
Anish Vij