Olivia Wilde is not happy about the cuts she had to make to the trailer for new her new film, Don’t Worry Darling. Wilde told the Associated Press Wednesday that the Motion Pictures Association ratings board forced her to remove additional scenes from that trailer that were deemed too sexual.
When the latest trailer was released in June, it included a scene in which Harry Styles’ character performs oral sex on Florence Pugh’s character on a dining room table. Wilde told the AP that she was “upset” that the MPA “came down hard” on her and the trailer “at the last second.”
“There’s a lot that had to be taken out of the trailer,” Wilde told the news org. “The MPA came down hard on me and the trailer at the last second and I had to cut some shots, which I was upset about because I thought they took it up another notch. But of course, we still live in a really puritanical society. I do think the lack of eroticism in American film is kind of new. Then when it comes to female pleasure, it’s something that we just don’t see very often unless you’re talking about queer cinema.”
Wilde said she’s already faced flack for the film’s oral sex scene, and it hasn’t even been released yet.
“People are upset with me already over this,” she added. “I think it’s a testament to the film. We want to be provocative. The idea is not to make you feel safe.”
Pugh isn’t exactly thrilled with the way the scenes have been received since the trailer’s release either. In addition to a rumored feud between Pugh and the film’s director, the Black Widow actress criticized viewers for reducing the entire film to one sex scene.
“When it’s reduced to your sex scenes, or to watch the most famous man in the world go down on someone, it’s not why we do it. It’s not why I’m in this industry,” Pugh said in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar. “Obviously, the nature of hiring the most famous pop star in the world, you’re going to have conversations like that. That’s just not what I’m going to be discussing because [this movie is] bigger and better than that. And the people who made it are bigger and better than that.”
Don’t Worry Darling premieres September 5 at the Venice Film Festival and will be released in theaters September 23.