Olivia Wilde revealed that Quentin Tarantino’s advice shaped a key creative decision on her latest film. The director shared the surprising influence while discussing her new project, which holds a 96 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Olivia Wilde reveals how Quentin Tarantino influenced The Invite
Olivia Wilde says Quentin Tarantino’s filmmaking advice had a direct impact on how she approached The Invite, revealing that she deliberately avoided relying on multiple cameras for most of the production.
Speaking on the SmartLess podcast, host Jason Bateman asked Wilde whether the film used multiple cameras. Wilde explained that the crew shot almost the entire film with a single camera, only bringing in a second camera during the final week for a handful of scenes.
Explaining the decision, she said, “We had one camera. The last week, we brought in a second camera cause … there were some scenes that … benefited from two cameras. But I didn’t want to. I felt like I had been inspired by, like, Tarantino saying like, ‘Don’t be a hack. Have one camera, pick your perspective. Anytime you have two cameras, one shot is suffering.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’”
The approach presented a unique challenge because The Invite unfolds almost entirely inside a single apartment, where two couples share an increasingly tense dinner party. “We did a lot of shared frame. That’s why it was theatrical in that way … which is why we had the best focus puller in the world who could somehow predict when someone was going to improvise a joke,” Wilde noted.
The film, written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and stars Wilde alongside Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton. The Invite opened in limited theaters on June 26 before expanding wide on July 10.