Harry Styles Denies Falling in Love with His Boss (Olivia Wilde)
Instead he told Howard Stern she was "very helpful" (?) on set
Harry Styles’ forthcoming third album, Harry’s House, suggests a certain hominess and comfort in its title. “Harry’s House” — seems cozy, inviting. Maybe he would serve you a cup of tea and the two of you could talk about weather or what it was like to be the fourth lead in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk five years ago. Early reviews hype up the album as the singer’s best yet, intimate and lively. Which might have you wondering: is this guy ever gonna talk about his love life?
Well, not likely, or especially not to Howard Stern, another HS-initialed man who pressed Styles on personal life during an interview today.
Styles has been dating actress and director Olivia Wilde with whom he worked on this year’s upcoming movie Don’t Worry Darling. They got together early last spring, two months after her separation from ex-fiancé (chic) Jason Sudeikis. One would think, using logic and reasoning, that because they started dating during the filming of Don’t Worry Darling, that perhaps they also fell in love during the filming of Don’t Worry Darling.
Stern, eager to follow this line of logic, asked Styles, “You fell in love on a movie set?”
It’s not a crazy question, nor is it all that abnormal a situation. Consider: Jennifer Lawrence and Darren Aronofsky, or Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter. Everyone is Hollywood is having sex with each other constantly, even now, because they are able to. Or even consider: they are being paid to be in a fake relationship with one another to drum up publicity for a movie not out for another four months still.
But Styles, ever the bedazzled cipher, rebuffed Stern’s claim, saying, “I had a wonderful experience getting directed by Olivia. Acting is kind of uncomfortable at times; you have to trust a lot. Being able to trust your director is a gift. That was very helpful. It meant for a really nice experience working on Don’t Worry Darling.”
It was helpful? Okay, sure, it is “helpful” to fall in love, in that it allows you to take part in the wonders and horrors of the world alongside another person. It is “helpful” to join another person’s life, meet their friends and their kids. It is “helpful” to stand by your partner, probably, when they have been served custody papers while premiering new footage from the movie you worked on together.
I am glad that Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles had a “really nice” experience working on the movie, just as I often have a “really nice” experience parallel parking a car or washing some towels. To his credit, Styles has been long cagey about his personal life, also telling Stern, “I’ve never found that openly discussing my private life to ever positively affect it. I like to work and give everything and then when I’m not I just live my life. I try not to blur the lines and if anything I get frustrated when people try to blur them for me.”
It’s frustrating, indeed, when lines are blurred, like those between a director and an actor, or when two people kiss on a yacht and then get asked if they’re in love (yuck!). So welcome to Harry’s House, take a step inside, but don’t go further than the foyer, you’re not all that welcome.
