205: Why Olivia Wilde's Recent Talking Point Should Never Be Used as a Quote

Don't Worry Darling is celebrating its Venice Film Festival premiere and from the star studded cast to all the behind the scenes drama, the movie is definitely the talk of the town. What do you mean? What do I mean? Florence Pugh Don't Worry Darling is the talk of Tick tock. Welcome to the Indestructible PR podcast where we use current events and tested media PR strategies to help prevent or manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. Did Harry Styles spit on Chris Pine? Did Olivia and Harry Styles break up? The cast of Don't Worry Darling hit the Venice Film Festival last weekend and there was plenty of behind the scenes drama on the podcast this week. A look at director Olivia Wilde finally addressing the so called fallout between herself and Ms. Flow. Let's discuss the press junket, specifically her comments about the drama, AKA PR Crisis. The scene was the Venice Film Festival. The topic of discussion was Olivia Wilde's second directorial effort, Don't Worry Darling and the fallout happening from the filming from hooking up with Harry Styles, her co star. From dumping Shia LaBeouf from the leaked video from Shia Shia Shia, from Florence Pugh. Ms. Flo being upset perhaps about the pay disparity, perhaps not. Perhaps about Olivia Wilde getting in a relationship with the co star. There were so many things happening behind the scene. If you want more information about the fallout and the drama, just google it or go to TikTok. Go to social media. I want to focus on one part of the drama. After all, I work in public relations, specifically crisis communication. PR crisis communication. And that's the area of focus for me. Last week I had posted a TikTok. I posted two TikToks about Olivia Wilde and oh my, I was saying to someone today in a work related thing straight from TikTok, I said the crazy thing is about that site is posting a video like a week ago, less than a week ago about Olivia Wilde's leaked video that she had sent to actor Shia LaBeouf who left the movie under Cloudy Reasons. I did a quick three minute video discussing it and as of right now it has a million views. Is it because I'm so talented at TikTok? Nope, not at all. But it's talking about two things. It's mashing up public relations, crisis management with pop culture. So it's that combustible little nugget that creates some interest, I suppose. So I wanted to bring it to the podcast to expand on it a little. So there are two TikTok posts that I had mentioned talking about this so let's talk about just specifically the press conference. And I wanted to pull away one bit of it that I mentioned in the TikTok video that would help communicators, clients, you know, people who traditionally listen to this podcast. Because Olivia Wilde, when I was listening to the podcast, I heard one talking point from her that I felt should never be used in a quote. PR handlers love to use it. I hear it all the time in my work in planning for, you know, crisis planning, communication plans. When I do training, when I'm talking to clients, I hear it out of the mouths of people. And every time I do, it's a red flag every single time. So I'm going to explain what it is and why you shouldn't use it. Now, let's go back to Venice for a moment. Let's set the scene. I'm sure many of you listening saw it. All the clips. We had Olivia Wilde in that fabulous. It looked like a wool Kelly green blazer, which is kind of all the rage right now. And then when it was opened, it revealed like this, you know, black bra. It was absolutely stunning. She looked great. She was at the press conference promoting the film alongside some of the co stars. Notably missing was co star Florence Pugh. Now, she was working on Dune 2. So Olivia, as you'll hear, was thanking her for taking the time to. To come to the Venice Film Festival to promote Don't Worry, Darling. But she was contractually obligated to do so. Olivia Wilde had to answer a question. So what she needed to do was not easy. She was in the middle of a huge PR swirl of a crisis about a week ago or two weeks ago. Now, the leaked video that I had mentioned from Shia LaBeouf. So Shia LaBeouf was originally attached to the film. He. He also leaked text messages between him and Florence Pugh about the filming to support his argument that he is not a troubled actor, that he is in a position right now where he is trying to rebrand his reputation. In fact, tomorrow I'm speaking with a reporter with USA Today about this reputation rebrand from actors like Shia LaBeouf, Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp. You know, how do you recover and rebrand yourself when there were some very troubling allegations. So what shy is trying to do, one is become a Catholic. That's for another time. I'll just bring it around here for a second. I'll give you a heads up of what I'm going to say to the reporter tomorrow about the whole Catholicism bit. I find it interesting in Researching for a movie about a friar turned priest. He immersed himself in the monastery life, and I watched a video of him with a Catholic priest talking about his conversion to Catholicism. Anyone who is a Catholic is a Roman Catholic. Knows you don't just sit down for a few chats to become a Catholic. You know, many of us who were born into the faith. It wasn't as difficult, though I would argue going to mass every Sunday. Growing up was no easy task, especially if you were out late on Saturday. But you do all the sacraments, you do all of the work. But even more difficult, people converting to Catholicism, that work, we're talking. That's almost a year. It's like a school year. You have to go through all of the sacraments. You have to go to meetings. It is what work. And then it culminates at Easter. It's September. There is no religious calendar that shows that it's Easter right now in September. I don't know what Shia LaBeouf is thinking he can get away with, but there's no Catholic out there that's thinking that this guy has done the work. I don't know how I'm going to say this in the interview. One thing I'm not going to say, but I'll say it on the podcast. I don't want to be chased into gates of hell for saying this, but since when was becoming a Catholic mean that your reputation's clean? You know what I'm saying? I know it's religion. And if you follow the religion, if you follow the ten Commandments, it might lead one to believe that you are reputationally pristine. There are plenty of Catholics, including, oh, my gosh, the heads of the church who have trouble with this. But I'm completely digressing here. Let's go back. So Shia's laboofed. He's out in the movie. So that's one PR issue that Olivia has to deal with now. She has to deal with the press conference. So she has to answer for it. There is absolutely no way that she can skirt around it. So this means at this press junket, she is sitting down with her PR handlers, whether it's a team, whether it's a publicist, whether they brought in a crack squad of people to sit down with her. And they had to hammer out. They had to army hammer out a response. Oh, I got to work with that in the future. I got to call it an army hammer. I got to find a way to do that. But they had to come up with a response. Okay. And it wasn't easy. But the whole point of this podcast is they included a line that I absolutely hate whenever I hear it. And I had mentioned in my TikTok, it is like a big red flag. And I use the. The expression. It's like a Les Mis. Can you hear the people sing Flag? Have anyone seen Les Mis picturing the guy on the table swinging the flag, that big red flag? That's what it's like when I hear the statement. So I felt that she was media trained, she was very articulate, she did not stumble. But this throwaway line, ooh. Has the opposite effect that you would think that it does. So let us now take a listen to Olivia Wilde. When she was first asked about Florence Pugh, her lead up, talking about Florence Pugh, and then what she said about all of the drama. Take a listen.

Florence is a force and we are so grateful that she's able to make it tonight, despite being in production on Dune. I know as a director how disruptive it is to lose an actor, even for a day. So I'm very grateful to her, grateful to Denis Villeneuve for helping us. And as for all the endless tabloid gossip and all the noise out there, I mean, the Internet feeds itself, I don't feel the need to contribute. I think it's sufficiently well nourished.

I think it's sufficiently well nourished. I'll admit I like the line. It was a very well written line. But the intention, in my opinion, is a misdirect. And the misdirect does not work for me because it is another form of blame. It is so difficult to be able to come clean. To pass the bar. To clear the land. No, to stick the landing. If you use blame in a statement, it's really, really difficult to do. So what it ended up doing, and you could see this, it didn't stop the crisis, it didn't enhance her reputation. There wasn't any reputational restructuring for Olivia Wilde there. That's the moment it got worse. So how's that for a case study? Olivia Wilde was trashed after that. All of the video showing Olivia Wilde being ostracized, you know, her co stars not wanting to stand next to her. Florence Pugh, who, frankly, is acting like a complete diva, right? Like, what would be the right thing to do would be to rise above it and just be nice, right? But here she is being a drama diva and it works. That is showing what a poor job that Olivia Wilde is doing to be able to stop the damage, to clear her name. Florence Pugh is acting like a complete diva and people are all team flow. So there, so there. Now, she did have a point when she mentioned, as for all the endless tabloid gossip, yes, there were tabloids. This was a tabloid story. It was in the Daily Mail. It was in Page Six, which is the New York Post. You Google it, it mostly comes up on native digital sites, viral sites, you know, BuzzFeed. But it was also in established legacy media, Variety Magazine, LA Times, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, People magazine. It bled into mainstream media. So one can argue that, like PT and Barnum says, you know, all publicity is good publicity. There is so much publicity for this movie. It's just. Just dripping with publicity. But the reviews aren't good. I believe on Rotten Tomatoes is at 48% negative, I believe. And that's only a screenshot of my mind, which I remember seeing somewhere on TikTok, I think. But this movie, it's not about the short term blip. It's not about the short term flash, you know, where everyone's talking about it. This is going to do some real damage for Olivia Wilde. Everyone else will probably come out of this fine. But it's Olivia Wilde. What is going to happen to her after this? It's going to be more difficult for her to direct another film, to direct her third film, which is a shame. You know, we want more female directors out there. And I'm not necessarily blaming her, but what we're saying is her handlers didn't take care of her. But as an aside on TikTok, someone who I know on TikTok, who always comments on my posts, and I love her, she has an amazing background, a media background. She's worked in news, she's worked. Worked in cable news. She works as a producer. She is like Inside Scope. So she's always giving me this inside story. She had said that she had worked with Olivia Wilde. And so Olivia Wilde apparently is living up to her reputation. Let's just say that piece. All right, then. In every episode of the podcast, I include an indestructible PR tip. In this case, it comes down to preparation. I know we've talked about Olivia Wilde. She's had to deal with a leaked video with Shia LaBeouf. She's dealt with the bad line in the press junket, in the press conference. She's had a tremendously bad press junket run. But she was incredibly well prepared in her statement. Who was not well prepared was her boyfriend, perhaps her former boyfriend, we don't know. But based on the video, it looks like they're not dating anymore. Harry Styles, maybe with one clip. If you're going into an interview, if you're fortunate enough to be a part of a press junket, just be prepared. Especially talking about a movie, it's not that difficult. So here's the easy thing. If you're sitting down for an interview, always have a at least three talking points. So you want your key message, what is it that you want to say in that interview? And then have three talking points. And those talking points are clips, if you will. Okay, so this interview that I'm doing with USA Today, I have paragraphs because she's interviewing me about a topic. It's not me pitching something that would be different. So I'm going to leave you with this clip of Harry Styles talking about the movie. So just everyone be prepared. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm gonna leave you with Harry Styles. Bye for now. My favorite thing about the movie is, like, it feels like a, like a movie. It feels like a real, like, you know, go to the film mov.