'NO A**HOLES': Olivia Wilde's set policy ensures 'everyone is on the same level'
torontosun.comOlivia Wilde has introduced a new policy on her sets to ensure “everybody is on the same level.”The Don’t Worry Darling director opened up to Variety about her famed “no a**holes” policy, and explained she wanted to reform the traditional “hierarchy” on a movie set when it came to helming her own films.“The no a**holes policy, it puts everybody on the same level,” she said. “I also noticed as an actress for years how the hierarchy of the set separated the actors from the crew in this very strange way that serves no one… I think actors would actually like to know more about what’s happening there when you’re pulling my focus?
What is that lens change? But the idea of, don’t bother the actors and keep them separate, and don’t look at them. I think it makes everyone quite anxious.”Olivia added that it was the advice from a fellow director that she needed to have “three big arguments” a day to enforce her position of power that made her realize she needed things to be different on her sets.“I think that it is an unfortunate part of the kind of the paradigm, that has been created over the last 100 years, the idea that great art has to come from a place of discomfort and anxiety,” she mused. “That the pressure cooker has to get to a point where it can be something intense and valuable in that way.
I do think it may be a uniquely female instinct to say, ‘Look, we can be nurturing. And we can multitask.’“It doesn’t mean that anyone needs to be uncomfortable.
And it doesn’t mean that I have to constantly remind you of my position, because I don’t think anyone on a set has ever forgotten who’s in charge.”
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