Olivia Wilde covers InStyle‘s February issue and inside, the 35-year-old filmmaker discusses the challenges of raising her kids Daisy, 3, and Otis, 5, to be good, strong people. Also, why she'll always be a low-rise jeans person.
Her Booksmart star Beanie Feldstein interviews her.
GENDER POLITICS
Already, she says, she has noticed her kids getting pushed into stereotypical roles.
Wilde explains: “With Daisy, I have witnessed how women are born with an incredible amount of strength and that society quickly pushes them to assume the more feminine role. I mean, I love that Elsa is looking pissed off on the Frozen 2 poster, but there's still an awful lot out there that's encouraging young women to make themselves the weaker sex. My role is to be a safe zone of support that'll hopefully counteract what society will inevitably do to them. When Daisy hits a place where she questions her worth, I want to be the one to remind her of the strength she innately has. But it's interesting because having a boy and a girl, you really notice gender politics within your own home. She'll clean up his plate for him after dinner, and I'm like, 'Put that back!'”
Watching this in action makes her want to continue to pass on what she calls “The Daisy Chain” of support, from one woman to another.
Wilde says: “The Daisy Chain is about wanting to lift each other up, I celebrate it because, for a long time, women have been told that in order to succeed, we have to push people out of the way. Producer Jessica Elbaum was someone who dared me to take myself seriously. There were so many people who said, 'Oh, you should direct.' But there aren't many who will actually help you when you've never done it before. Jessica had the confidence in me to put her own reputation on the line by recommending that production company Annapurna hear my pitch for Booksmart. And that's real generosity.”
FASHION
While fans know Wilde for her glam, she says off-camera she’s laidback. In fact, she claims she still dresses like the character she played in Fox‘s The O.C.
Wilde says: “I'm still pretending to be a teenager from the early aughts. My most comfortable state is when I'm wearing low-rise jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt. In that, I am unstoppable. And if I'm in a high-waist jean, I can't let my gut expand.”