Olivia Wilde has defended her role in the controversial Clint Eastwood film Richard Jewell, saying she “did not have a say in how the film was ultimately crafted”.
The film, which is about a media frenzy following the 1996 Atlanta Olympic bombing, has been widely criticised for implying that Wilde’s character, the late journalist Scruggs, "traded sex for tips" with an FBI agent.
Wilde said she did not mean to suggest that Scruggs had sex with Tom Shaw, played by John Hamm, in return for information about a suspect.
Scruggs died in 2001 and the newspaper she worked at, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has threatened to sue director Eastwood and Warner Bros over the issue.
In a Twitter thread, Wilde wrote: “Contrary to a swath of recent headlines, I do not believe that Kathy ‘traded sex for tips’. Nothing in my research suggested she did so, and it was never my intention to suggest she had. That would be an appalling and misogynistic dismissal of the difficult work she did.”
She added: “I cannot speak for the creative decisions made by the filmmakers, as I did not have a say in how the film was ultimately crafted, but it’s important to me that I share my personal take on the matter.”
Elsewhere in the thread, Wilde described Scruggs as “a modern, independent woman whose personal life should not detract from her accomplishments”.
Wilde concluded the thread by distancing herself from the film’s creators. “I realise my opinions about Kathy, based on my own independent research, may differ from others involved with the film, but it was important to me to make my own position clear,” she wrote.
While Warner Bros has not responded to Wilde's tweets, the company replied to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution letter with a statement insisting the film is based on "a wide range of highly credible source material".
Richard Jewell will be released in UK cinemas on 31 January 2020.
