Olivia Wilde Says Only Boys Are Encouraged to Direct Movies

Olivia Wilde is calling out the gender bias in encouraging kids to become directors.

The “Don’t Worry Darling” and “Booksmart” filmmaker said during the Red Sea International Film Festival, via Variety, that children are told to enter Hollywood based on their gender and not their interests.

“I think for many young women, when we love movies as little girls, we’re told, ‘Oh, you should be an actress,’” Wilde said. “I think when little boys say they love movies, people say ‘You should be a director.’”

Wilde pointed to how studios do not greenlight female-directed projects, despite the features financially making the same if not more than male-helmed films.

“Movies directed by women don’t make less money,” Wilde said. “It’s not the audience’s problem. It’s the financiers, it’s the studios. They need to take what they perceive as a risk.”

She added, “There’s no shortage of talent, only shortage of opportunity. There aren’t less women studying film. There’s less women getting their movies made.”

Wilde encouraged women to be more emboldened both in and out of Hollywood, especially when trying to finance features.

“I think we need to raise women to believe that they are allowed to take up space, that they’re allowed to be leaders,” Wilde said. “It’s difficult to run a production, and it’s difficult for men too. But as women, we’re sort of told that we should, in many ways, constantly apologize for our existence. And as a director, you can’t do that. I think that it’s about shifting the way that we raise women to consider how they should behave and to encourage that kind of fearlessness.”

Wilde also reflected on how it took her producing debut with 2015’s “Meadowland” to help her realize that actresses inherently have to pivot at some point in Hollywood due to the age bias of casting.

“Acting is the only job where the more experience you have, the less valuable you become,” Wilde said. “With actresses, the older you get, the less valuable you become.”

She opted instead to become “more celebrated” by stepping behind the camera, first as a producer and later as a director with 2019’s “Booksmart.”

“For me, it was such a boost in confidence to know that I can actually walk into a room and sell a movie, get a movie financed, because I know what I’m talking about,” Wilde said.