Olivia Wilde on the Price of Being the Villain in Everyone’s Soap Opera
Olivia Wilde stepped into Alex Cooper’s hot seat for a sprawling, unfiltered conversation that touched on her new film, the aesthetics of modern relationships, and the public tornado that once swirled around her. The episode lands somewhere between a masterclass in couple dynamics and a candid post-mortem on fame, gender, and rebuilding after chaos.
The film that started it all
Wilde’s new movie — a sharp, talky two-hander about a marriage on the brink — became the entry point for almost everything they discussed. She revealed that relationship guru Esther Perel served not just as inspiration but as an on-board consultant, helping the team avoid oversimplified “he’s the villain, she’s the victim” storytelling.
Everyone in the conflict [is] right because everyone’s coming from within their experience… They don’t ever say what they really mean. They’re saying this kind of feel.
That Perel-shaped lens — love as a verb, responsibility inside the relationship, not just toward the other person — threads through Wilde’s answers about marriage, desire, and why so many couples get stuck in passive-aggressive loops.
Marriage, optimism, and cynicism
The episode opens with an Oscar Wilde quote about love and marriage, and Cooper presses Wilde on where she actually lands. Wilde’s take is characteristically nuanced: she sees marriage as a potentially beautiful ritual, but one that too often calcifies into entitlement and stops active loving.
Love is a verb. It is something you have to continue to engage in… In many cases marriage becomes the end of that engagement in the process of loving.
She jokes she might marry at 85, back at Burning Man, but the real point is her insistence that people shouldn’t expect a partner to “complete” them. The healthiest stance, in her view, is choosing the institution from wholeness, not desperation.
From Maxim 100 to director’s chair
A big arc of the conversation tracks Wilde’s shift from being ranked and rated as a “hot” actress to being valued for her brain as a director. She describes the Maxim “hottest 100” moment as both validating and distorting: it told her she finally fit a standard that had always excluded her, while tying her value to something fickle and external.
Your value is entirely dependent on our fickle subjective definition of beauty… It’s a dangerous thing to suddenly be told, ‘Now you are good and we want you.’
Directing, by contrast, gave her a career path where experience compounds instead of decays. After Greta Gerwig’s breakthrough, Wilde felt the door crack open wider for women pivoting from acting to behind-the-camera power.
Without Greta doing Lady Bird, I was not doing Booksmart. She walked so I could run.
Motherhood, work, and the double standard
Wilde is blunt about the impossible tightrope for working mothers: miss a school event and you’re judged; prioritize your career and you’re still judged. She channels her own mother, a war correspondent who faced criticism for risking her life in the field while raising kids.
The judgment placed on a working mom is unlike anything you’ve ever seen… It’s crippling. And the only thing that heals it is talking about it.
She’s also candid about co-parenting post-separation, arguing that kids can get “the best of us” when parents split responsibilities intentionally instead of staying in a miserable “for the kids” setup.
You can create a dynamic that allows that kid to maximum amount of love… We work really well as separated co-parents.
The tornado: smear campaigns, spitgate, and being served on stage
No recap of this interview would be complete without the public implosion era. Wilde describes that period as a “tornado” of fake narratives, tabloid logic, and moral panic — all while she was trying to promote a movie.
It was really strange to see complete fiction traded as fact… Once there’s a narrative formed, they are just trying to maintain that narrative. It has nothing to do with the truth anymore.
She recounts the infamous “spitgate” frenzy with a mix of disbelief and humor, and shares the surreal moment Tom Cruise brought up her being served legal papers on stage at CineCon.
I convinced myself, Tom, that no one knew. Why are you talking to me, Olivia?
The most visceral moment she describes is being served papers mid-speech in front of studio heads and exhibitors. She muscled through the speech, then fell apart backstage — only to discover the video was already online.
I cannot [f***] believe this is happening to me here… Once you make it through things like that, you kind of feel like you can make it through anything.
Dating, power, and the older-woman “scandal”
Cooper asks why Wilde’s relationship with a younger, massively famous musician triggered such outsized rage. Wilde points to the parasocial ownership fans feel over male stars, plus the puritanical policing of mothers’ sexuality.
Motherhood means no more sexual being for you, young lady… If I see you without your baby enjoying yourself as an individual woman, I see that as a betrayal.
She notes the double standard in how dads with babies are read as “hot” and capable, while moms are seen as “done” the second they step outside the caregiver role.
Sex, desire, and menopause on screen
The film doesn’t shy away from sex — or the lack of it. Wilde and Seth Rogen’s characters argue about why they’ve stopped being intimate, with his line — “You’re supposed to want me. You’re my wife.” — landing as a microcosm of entitlement in long-term relationships.
You are supposed to want me forever without any participation in that, without earning it.
Wilde insists that sex matters not because of frequency, but because it’s a barometer for nonverbal communication, trust, and curiosity. If that channel closes, something deeper needs attention.
The movie also wades into menopause, with Penelope Cruz’s character schooling the men in the room on symptoms like frozen shoulder. Wilde says those conversations were deliberately pushed by Perel, Cruz, and writer Rashida Jones to break the silence around aging and female desire.
The ambiguous ending and what audiences project
Without spoiling the ending, Wilde shares that she polls audiences after screenings: “Do you think they stay together or not?” The split is revealing.
Women tend to believe that they don’t. When women are done with a relationship, they’re done… By the time we decide to go, we’ve thought about it.
Men, in her experience, are more likely to waffle and circle back. Her own read of the ending shifts depending on how romantic she’s feeling that day — which, she admits, is often.
I’m still a sucker for it… If you can grow older and stay hopeful in every way about everything, then you’ve really won.
Staying soft in a hard world
The episode closes on a note that feels like a mission statement for Wilde’s next chapter. After reaching out to Pamela Anderson during her own public battering, Wilde got a piece of advice she now lives by.
The most rebellious thing you can do is stay soft. Don’t let it harden you.”
For Wilde, “unapologetic” doesn’t have to mean armored. The more powerful she gets, the more she’s leaning into vulnerability — and refusing to let the noise define who she is off-screen.
This recap is based on Olivia Wilde’s appearance on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast. For the full episode, click on the YouTube link at the top or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
