Florence Pugh did not attend the Don’t Worry Darling press conference at the Venice International Film Festival.
The highly anticipated psychological thriller, which is directed by Olivia Wilde and sees Pugh star opposite Harry Styles, premieres at the festival on Monday (5 September).
While the cast will be taking part in a press conference with Wilde, it was confirmed by Variety that Pugh would not be in attendance.
The 26-year-old’s flight reportedly arrived in Venice minutes after the press conference finished on Monday, coming straight from the set of Dune Part 2 in Budapest.
While she didn’t make the press conference, Pugh will walk the red carpet with her co-stars, participate in the photo call and attend the premiere screening, before jetting back to Hungary to work on the Dune sequel on Tuesday morning (September 6).
According to Deadline, this was always the Oscar nominee’s plan before reports surfaced claiming friction between Pugh and her director, Wilde on set.
The Little Women star has notably been quiet about promoting the project, set to hit cinemas on September 23, and has so far only graced the cover for Harper’s Bazaar as part of the media tour.
In recent weeks, reports of a feud between the pair have intensified after Wilde claimed that she fired Shia LaBeouf from the movie in 2020 in order to create a “safe, trusting environment” on set for Pugh.
However, LaBeouf denied the claims and sent Variety a video he alleges he received from Wilde, which shows the filmmaker asking him not to quit the project and alluding to tension between the stars.
In the video, she says that LaBeouf leaving “might be a bit of a wake-up call for Miss Flo”.
However, Wilde has insisted that the feud is nothing but “invented clickbait”, while Pugh has not commented on or refuted the reports.
In fact, the Book Smart director heaped praise on Pugh last week for Interview magazine and branded her “ferociously talented”.
When asked about Pugh during the press conference she said: “Florence is a force. We are grateful that she is able to make it tonight despite being in production on Dune... as for all the endless tabloid nonsense and gossip out there, the internet feeds itself. I don’t really need to contribute.”
