#i met nick kroll in the lobby of a hotel once

[gardenerian]

hi mel! i’m not sure if anyone has came to your inbox yet and updated you on the don’t worry darling drama, but i’ll try to cover everything for you! (i also apologize in advance for this being super long, i wasn’t sure how much knowledge you had coming in and i’ve gotten way to invested in following this.)

okay, the general background: the film was originally set to star shia labeouf (who has been accused of being abusive by many women, including his ex-girlfriend fka twigs) and florence pugh as the lead characters jack and alice. shia left the film because he didn’t feel there was enough rehearsal time, which upset olivia wilde, the film’s director, who begged him to stay on. nevertheless, he left, and they had to recast jack. olivia really wanted harry styles to play him. somewhere in this time, olivia broke up with her long term boyfriend jason sudeikis and started dating harry, and some people believe there may have been overlap. florence pugh also happens to be a good friend to jason sudeikis. there were some (unconfirmed) rumors during filming that olivia was behaving unprofessionally on set (specifically in regards to harry) and that florence essentially was doing a lot of the directorial work, so there were definitely rumors tension on set. later, olivia was onstage at cinemacon when she was served custody papers for hers and jason’s daughters. florence pugh is also known for enthusiastically promoting the films she’s in, but has basically done very little for this film, even going so far as to promote other projects on days when trailers for dwd drop, which is around the time people started to wonder if there was tension between olivia and florence. florence said in an interview that she was disappointed by the marketing of the film, which focused heavily on the sexual aspects of the film, and had olivia made a huge point of emphasizing that the film was about female sexuality and whatnot, at the very least they didn’t seem to be seeing eye-to-eye when it came to this. meanwhile olivia has been heaping praise onto florence in interviews and told variety in an interview that she fired shia because of the abuse allegations and because she was trying to protect florence… to which shia responded by sending an email to her which denied that he was fired and reiterated that he quit and then a video was leaked of olivia begging him to stay on with the film and at one point she says that if he could make it work, it might be a “wake up call for miss flo” and she rolled her eyes, further suggesting there was tension. i’ve also heard that around this time harry and olivia’s relationship started to get a bit rocky? it’s unclear. shortly after the video came out, florence announced she wouldn’t be taking part in the press tour for the film and would only be participating in the press stuff at venice, citing that she was filming for dune during that time— later, she amended it to only showing up for the red carpet and the screening of the film. however, a lot of people questioned if this was the real reason because timothée chalamet, who’s the lead in dune, was there pretty much the whole time.

okay, finally to the film festival itself! so first of all, while olivia and most of the cast were busy doing press for the film (with olivia at one point talking about how florence was busy filming and avoiding any questions about the rumors/drama), florence shows up in venice with aperol spritz, seeming to indicate that she wasn’t really needed for filming and just didn’t want to be there to promote dwd. there was also some fun moments where chris pine seems to be disassociating throughout at the press interviews (especially one funny moment where harry styles is saying that “[his] favorite thing about the movie is that it feels like a movie.”) the next day is the red carpet, where there seems to be a concentrated effort to keep florence, harry, and olivia away from each other, which was achieved with gemma chan, chris pine, and nick kroll standing/sitting between them at all times. i’m not sure why harry and florence were kept apart, but as for harry and olivia i’ve seen speculation that either a) olivia and harry don’t want attention put on themselves/their relationship (especially with all the other stuff going on), so they were purposefully keeping a distance to avoid fueling gossip or b) they have broken up. there’s video before the showing of the film starts where it appears that harry styles spits on chris pine when going to sit by him (i’m pretty sure chris pine’s rep confirmed he didn’t but it’s been a huge thing and honestly kind of funny). the film recieves four minutes of applause at the end, with florence pugh desperately trying to leave (presumably to make her flight back to the set of dune), and at some point during the applause harry kissed nick kroll.

and i think that’s it! obviously a lot of this is speculation and can/should be taken with a grain of salt, but this is most of what i’ve seen so far! love you and hope you’re doing well!!! 💙💙

oh my god darling anon, this is the greatest day of my life asdjkfh THANK YOU! i'd done some sleuthing but this is truly above and beyond! i had no idea about the custody papers thing that is ICE COLD. also the aperol spritz moment, may we all live to have one - this is an absolutely wild ride and i am completely in your debt for this comprehensive overview! also sudeikis >>>>>

#i met nick kroll in the lobby of a hotel once #what i would give to bump into him again and be like TELL ME EVERYTHING #i am a messy bench that lives for drama #other people's drama of course #anon i bless you and love you #mel answers