How Don't Worry Darling Director Olivia Wilde Got Her Big Break

Welcome to The Big Break, a column where The List staff looks back at how this week's headline-grabbing star made their claim to fame.

The internet is buzzing about Olivia Wilde after the director finally opened up about all the drama surrounding her 2022 film "Don't Worry Darling." In her June 24 interview with The Cut, Wilde explained that the wild rumors surrounding her and the film's cast simply weren't true. "I have never had a screaming match on my set. I was never not available on set. I wanted to be like, 'None of this is true,'" she said. After all the gossip surrounding her film, Wilde admits that working in Hollywood "has robbed me of my naïveté for sure."

Of course, directing the highly talked-about thriller was far from Wilde's introduction to working in Hollywood. Most of us knew her from her acting days before her directorial debut, "Booksmart," in 2019. Her breakout role came 15 years earlier. Plenty of folks likely know Wilde best for her run on the popular medical drama "House," while others may recognize her from "Tron: Legacy," "Drinking Buddies," or "Vinyl." Over time, many have likely forgotten that Wilde was part of the cast of "The O.C." Playing Alex Kelly on the beloved series skyrocketed her to stardom and paved the way for her future as a movie star and well-known director.

Most of us have had a job in our younger years that we barely think about as we get older. For Olivia Wilde, she's admitted that over time, she's come to appreciate the role she took on as a 20-year-old more than she did before. In 2019, Wilde told The New York Times, "I used to dismiss 'The O.C.,'" noting, "I'd be like, 'I did a teen soap — what an embarrassment.' And now I think, ah, that was really formative and I'm lucky I got to do that."

It's clear that Wilde was happy to get her start when and how she did. Yet, her appreciation for bringing Alex Kelly to life goes deeper than that, thanks to the impact the character has had on fans. "When I started acting and one of my first jobs was playing a bisexual teenager on 'The O.C.,' nothing about it scared or shocked me," she told Advocate in 2016. According to her, "I was just surprised by the enormity of the response. I still have women coming up to tell me they started discovering their own sexuality because of 'The O.C.'" So, it seems that Wilde's time on "The O.C." didn't just change the trajectory of her life; it changed the lives of fans, too. And, as an actor, that's quite a way to start off your career.