Utopian cults seem to be a recurring theme for Florence Pugh, star of 2019’s Midsommar and now Olivia Wilde’s psychological thriller, Don’t Worry Darling. Last month, we got a first look at Harry Styles’ character in the upcoming film, and this week (March 4) the Booksmart director has offered a glimpse of Pugh’s lead character, Alice.
Shared to Instagram, the still image shows the Midsommar and Little Women star standing with her hands raised in the desert, seemingly surrounded by figures in red. Basically, everything you would expect of an experimental utopian community gone awry in 1950s California, which serves as the setting for Pugh’s character, a housewife who begins to suspect there’s something up with her idyllic life.
“Don’t worry,” Wilde captions the post, also sharing a behind-the-scenes image from set in an accompanying Instagram story (below).
When Wilde shared an image of Harry Styles as Pugh’s onscreen husband (February 15), she also included a statement on the singer-slash-actor’s involvement in the film, writing: “Little known fact: most male actors don’t want to play supporting roles in female-led films.”
“The industry has raised them to believe it lessens their power (i.e financial value) to accept these roles, which is one of the reasons it’s so hard to get financing for movies focusing on female stories. No joke, it is harrrrrd to find actors who recognize why it might be worth it to allow for a woman to hold the spotlight.”
“Enter: Harry Styles, our ‘Jack’. Not only did he relish the opportunity to allow for the brilliant Florence Pugh to hold center stage as our ‘Alice’, but he infused every scene with a nuanced sense of humanity.”
Don’t Worry Darling is also set to star Kiki Layne, Chris Pine, Gemma Chan, and Dita Von Teese. View Wilde’s post teasing Florence Pugh as Alice below.