Olivia Wilde, director of Booksmart and Don’t Worry Darling, talks through her craft behind the camera and her new film The Invite in an hour on stage at BFI Southbank.
Olivia Wilde, who directed Booksmart and Don’t Worry Darling, discusses her work behind the camera in conversation at BFI Southbank on the South Bank on Sunday 1 November 2026.
Wilde was born Olivia Jane Cockburn in New York City in 1984 and grew up in Washington, D.C. She holds American and Irish citizenship, and her father, the journalist Andrew Cockburn, was born in Willesden.
She became known as Remy “Thirteen” Hadley in the medical drama House, which she played from 2007 to 2012. Films followed, among them Tron: Legacy and Her.
Her first feature as director, the comedy Booksmart (2019), won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. She followed it with the thriller Don’t Worry Darling in 2022 and the comedy-drama The Invite this year, and starred in both.
The BFI places The Invite in the line of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Abigail’s Party. Across the hour in NFT1, Wilde talks about her visual style and the way she works with actors.