Florence Pugh will skip another Don't Worry Darling event, this time in New York

Florence Pugh came to the Venice Film Festival to look stunning, walk the red carpet, stir the pot a little, and leave before the end of the film’s standing ovation. And she did it flawlessly. Now, it seems the Don’t Worry Darling star does not intend on attending any further press moments for the film, as it’s been confirmed she will skip out on its New York City premiere and Q&A on September 19.

“From what I understand, there is friction, but I don’t know why,” one source tells Rolling Stone on the issue. “It’s pretty clear she’s choosing not to be a part of the PR. It’s clearly not beneficial to Olivia to not have her be a part of the PR. It has to be a Florence decision.”

Ahead of the film’s theatrical debut on September 23, New York City’s AMC Lincoln Square Imax Theatre will host a Q&A with director Olivia Wilde and stars Harry Styles, Gemma Chan, Nick Kroll, Sydney Chandler, Kate Berlant, Asif Ali, and Douglas Smith. The event will be live-streamed to over 100 Imax theaters across North America.

The official reason given for Pugh’s absence is that she’ll be busy filming Dune: Part Two for Denis Villeneuve. Fair enough; this writer would also not push to attend an event for a movie with this much drama when she could stay in Budapest and film Dune: Part Two with Timothée Chalamet.

Over the weekend, Pugh showed up at Venice Film Festival just in time for the film’s screening, and not for the press conference beforehand. Fueling the rumors around a rift between her and film director Olivia Wilde, the two kept their distance from one another on the red carpet and during the screening, with Pugh bolting to the first plane out of Venice. However, this did not stop Wilde from having plenty of nice things to say about her star.

“Florence is a force,” Wilde said in Venice. “We are so grateful she’s able to make it tonight [for the red carpet] despite being in production on Dune. I know, as a director, how disruptive it is to lose an actor even for a day, so I’m very grateful to her, and to Denis Villeneuve for helping us. And we’ll get to celebrate her work tonight. I can’t say how honored I am to have her as our lead. She’s amazing. As for all the endless tabloid gossip and all the noise out there, the Internet feeds itself. I don’t feel the need to contribute; I think it’s sufficiently well-nourished.”

Even before Don’t Worry Darling’s world debut, Pugh did not seem too thrilled about answering questions related to the film, especially when it came to the sex scenes between her and co-star Styles. It seems no matter what, Pugh’s going to come out of this press cycle on top, as her performance in Don’t Worry Darling has received raving reviews amongst heavy criticisms of Wilde’s direction.