Olivia Wilde showed up at the SXSW Film Festival with a new film in which she plays a kick-ass vigilante imposing justice on abusers of women, and guess what? She’s into it.
“I think this film can be seen as an allegory for fighting the patriarchy,” she told TheWrap at our studio on Saturday about “A Vigilante,” written and directed by Sarah Daggar-Nickson. “It’s about the abuse of power. And what we’re sensing right now is we’ve had enough of that.”
The film is a kind of revenge fantasy in which Wilde as Sadie seeks out men abusing women and exacts her own justice.
The experience also helped to inspire her to direct her first film, “Booksmart,” which goes into production shortly.
“I’ve wanted to direct for a long time. It takes witnessing other women directing to give you the strength to do it — we cannot become what we cannot see,” she said.
“I’ve had the opportunity to work with a few really strong directors — as well as a lot of great male directors… But I had really become inspired in the last couple of years to move from acting and producing into directing, and certainly being on the set of ‘A Vigilante,’ I felt really empowered by Sarah to take creative agency within my role as an actress. She really let me craft the film with her.”
Wilde added, “Coming off of that I definitely felt emboldened to take the leap.”
“A Vigilante” premieres at SXSW and is for sale. Watch the video above.