At the end of Olivia Wilde‘s latest film The Invite, before the credits roll there is a brief moment when the screen flashes to a note that reads “For Diane.”
The Diane is mention is Diane Keaton, and Wilde has dedicated the movie — which follows a couple barely keeping their marriage together who invite their neighbors over for a quickly detailed dinner party — to the late star.
“I really wanted to show this movie to Diane. I don’t think that there is an Invite without Diane Keaton because she’s in so many of the films that inspired this film,” Wilde told The Hollywood Reporter at the L.A. premiere on Wednesday. “She is the first actress I recognized to kind of represent a totally unique and complex woman; she didn’t fit any archetype, she was singular in her vulnerability, her complexity, her creativity. She’s unlike anyone else and she was very encouraging to me personally, and I just wanted this to be for her.”
Keaton, who passed away in October, played Wilde’s mother in the 2015 comedy Love the Coopers. When she died, Wilde penned a long tribute on Instagram, recalling how “she laughed through night shoots, kept us roaring with laughter constantly actually, and talked to us for hours about love. She told me to keep my heart open. She told me to direct. She told me to be brave. She told me to keep laughing.”
Wilde not only directs the project — her third time behind the camera, following Booksmart and Don’t Worry Darling — but also stars alongside Seth Rogen as the couple in crisis. Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton play their neighbors in a story that was adapted from the 2020 Spanish-language film The People Upstairs.
“This project gave me the opportunity to approach a production in a way that I’d always dreamed,” Wilde explained. “I wanted to really workshop material together, I wanted to feel real collaboration, I wanted to rehearse, I wanted to shoot on film, and because of the logistical reality of this film being in one location, we could also shoot in order, which was something that I always dreamt of. I thought, ‘Wow, we can approach it like a play.’ So it was a film that allowed for a process that was so singular, and I just thought, ‘That’s what I want.’ I want to make something because of the process and not the imagined result.”
Writers Rashida Jones and Will McCormack also took part in that rehearsal period, adjusting the script as the whole team brainstormed how to make the characters deeper and more complex. And when it came to making changes from the Spanish version, McCormack said, “We didn’t want to reinvent the wheel, we love the Spanish film. I think the ending was something we really focused on from the jump, that was something we gave the most attention to. And with any movie with relationships, we’re trying to figure out why they fell in love, how they fell in love, are they still in love and if they’ll remain together and just really digging into that and just making sure that all worked.”
The Invite slides into select theaters on Friday, opening wide July 10.
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