Filmmaker Olivia Wilde has said Diane Keaton’s DNA is “all over” her upcoming movie and praised the late actress for being “completely original”.
Wilde, 42, dedicated her upcoming film, The Invite, to the actress who died in October aged 79 from pneumonia.
The US actress and director praised Keaton, best known for The Godfather, Father Of The Bride and Annie Hall, for making vulnerability feel “hilarious and human”, a theme which Wilde explores in her latest offering.
Speaking at special screening of the film in central London, Wilde told the Press Association that Keaton was someone she “cared about deeply” and who remains in her “creative bloodstream”.
She said: “We are all a product of the movies that raised us, and this movie is kind of our collective love letter to the films that really made us laugh at what it is to be human, what it is to try to be in a relationship with someone else.
“She was her own singular creature, she was so completely original and specific, and she made vulnerability feel like something really delicious and hilarious and human, and that’s what I was certainly going for in the movie as a whole.
“Like, to be vulnerable is to be free and it’s okay to laugh at yourself.
“She’s all over this movie, her DNA is all over it and it’s not just for me. I think we all were raised on her. She’s like in our creative bloodstream.”
Co-written by Parks and Recreation actress, Rashida Jones, the film explores marriage and partner swapping and follows two adult couples as they navigate anxieties around sex with other people.
An English-language remake of the Spanish film, The People Upstairs, the movie stars Wilde and Seth Rogen as Angela and Joe, a married, uptight couple, and Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton as Pina and Hawk, an unmarried, free-spirited couple.
Jones told PA it was a “dream” to write for the four actors, adding that she felt “extremely grateful” to see them bring the script to life.
She said: “I was just in the car on the way here just like having an enormous amount of gratitude about being in a position to write something and have it come to life with somebody who had such a strong vision as a director, and these actors who completely made it their own and took it, and ran with it, and made it even better than we could have imagined. I mean, that never happens, and I feel extremely grateful.”
She went on to explain how the original film is about tenderness and a “closing of a chapter” while with the remake she wanted to focus more closely on a feeling of acceptance.
Jones said: “I think, for us, we wanted to write about sort of acceptance, like acceptance of who you are right now, as opposed to who you thought you’d be, who you thought your partner would be, who you wish they would be, who you wish they’d be now, and accepting that you once had love, and that that’s something worth acknowledging.
“And maybe asking each other for forgiveness, whether you stay together or you don’t, that you shared this love together and that’s important. It’s kind of why we’re alive.”
Jones is also known for starring the US version of The Office as well as the drama Silo.
Wilde previously directed the teenage comedy, Booksmart, and the psychological thriller, Don’t Worry Darling, which starred Florence Pugh and Harry Styles.
