Don't Worry Darling director Olivia Wilde won't say she 'fired' Shia LaBeouf: 'I chose my actress'

To worry or not to worry, darling? Olivia Wilde seemed to be in the latter class Wednesday night, as the filmmaker coolly broke down the drama surrounding her new movie on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

Colbert pressed the actress-director on the heavily discussed reports of tensions on the set of Wilde's Don't Worry Darling, including the sequence of events that led to actor Shia LaBeouf — who was originally cast in a role opposite Florence Pugh that ultimately went to Harry Styles — exiting the film before it was completed.

"There were private messages released without context to try to make a situation look like something that it wasn't," Wilde said, seemingly referencing the leak of a cell phone video she allegedly sent to LaBeouf asking him to find a way to make the film work with "Ms. Flo" (which many interpreted as a nickname for Pugh) as his costar. "Early on in the process of making the film, as the director, I tried to mediate a situation between people to try to see if they could work together happily. Once it became clear that it was not a tenable working relationship, I was given an ultimatum. I chose my actress, which, I'm very happy I did."

Wilde, who had largely remained tight-lipped about the situation in recent weeks, continued, telling Colbert that she was "bummed that we weren't able to make it work," but that subsequent allegations of abuse against LaBeouf in 2020 made her "confident that we made the right decision" to part ways with him.

"We had to replace Shia. He is a fantastic actor, but it wasn't going to work. When he gave me the ultimatum of him or Florence, I chose Florence, and that was him feeling he was stepping away, and me feeling like we were moving on without him," Wilde continued, despite Colbert asking her to clarify if LaBeouf was "fired" or not. Wilde, however, summed up the exchange by noting that all involved "ended up with what they wanted" at the time.

"He didn't want to be part of the production we were making in the way I like to make productions, and so he moved on, we moved on and replaced him, and ended up with a cast that I'm so proud of and a movie I'm really thrilled about," Wilde said. (EW has reached out to a representative for LaBeouf for comment.)

The media frenzy around Don't Worry Darling bubbled up after Variety published a cover story with Wilde in August.

"[H]is process was not conducive to the ethos that I demand in my productions," Wilde told the publication after deciding to recast his part. "I believe that creating a safe, trusting environment is the best way to get people to do their best work. Ultimately, my responsibility is to the production and to the cast to protect them."

LaBeouf responded in an email to Variety, stressing that he was not dismissed from the movie.

"I am a little confused about the narrative that I was fired," LaBeouf wrote, before calling the use of his name "attractive clickbait" for Wilde's Don't Worry Darling press tour. "You and I both know the reasons for my exit. I quit your film because your actors & I couldn't find time to rehearse."

He continued: "Firing me never took place, Olivia. And while I fully understand the attractiveness of pushing that story because of the current social landscape, the social currency that brings, it is not the truth. So I am humbly asking, as a person with an eye toward making things right, that you correct the narrative as best you can. I hope none of this negatively effects [sic] you, and that your film is successful in all the ways you want it to be."

Don't Worry Darling follows Pugh as a 1950s housewife who lives with her husband (Styles) in a utopian community, before discovering that her spouse's powerful company may be harboring sinister secrets that threaten their reality.

The film also stars Wilde and Chris Pine, who also endured his share of controversy out of the film's Venice International Film Festival world premiere, when a video seemed to show Styles spitting on him as he sat down next to the actor at the movie's screening. In an email statement, Pine's representative called it "a ridiculous story" and a "fabrication," writing that "Harry Styles did NOT spit on Chris Pine."

Don't Worry Darling is in theaters Friday.

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