Olivia Wilde has addressed the viral moment that had the internet comparing her to a Lord of the Rings character, and she took it in good humour, with a little help from her brother.
The actress and filmmaker, 42, shared a video on her Instagram Stories on Saturday, 2 May, in which her brother Charlie Cockburn opened with a pointed question.
“Olivia Wilde, do you care to address recent rumors that you’re a resurrected corpse?” he asked.
Her response was a mixture of mock outrage and genuine laughter.
“Listen, that’s a fish-eye lens. And I admit, is that my best angle? Was that my best-ever look? No. No, it’s startling. It’s a startling image.”
She was insistent about where the blame lay.
“It was a fish-eye lens. I don’t know why I was so close to the camera. I didn’t have to be. That’s not the truth,” she said, before asking her brother with a smile, “Do you have any more questions?”
She finished with the definitive clarification: “I’m not dead”, before covering her face with her baseball cap as the two dissolved into laughter.
The moment she was responding to came from a San Francisco Chronicle interview filmed during her appearance at the San Francisco International Film Festival on 24 April, where she was promoting her new comedy The Invite.
The footage went viral after the unusual camera angle prompted a wave of online comments comparing her to Gollum from The Lord of the Rings.
“She looks as if she had found the one ring,” one person wrote. Another sympathised with her, noting that “the cameraman really doing a disservice here.”
The Invite marks Wilde’s third feature as director, following Booksmart in 2019 and Don’t Worry Darling in 2022.
The film follows a troubled couple whose dinner party with their upstairs neighbours takes an unexpected turn.
Written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones and adapted from a 2020 film, it opened the San Francisco International Film Festival and received a standing ovation at Sundance in January.
Wilde also stars in the film alongside Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton.
