The actress opens up about directing the band for their latest music video.
While Olivia Wilde has enjoyed a successful career as an
actress, earning Emmy buzz for her role on HBO’s Vinyl, she has started moonlighting as a music video director.
Citing longtime directors Mark Romanek and Spike Jonze as
inspiration, she made her debut behind the camera with the video for “No Love
Like Yours” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. Most recently, she was at
the helm of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' music video for “Dark Necessities,” their
first since 2012.
MORE: How Olivia Wilde Channeled the Raw Energy of Giving Birth Into 'Vinyl'
“I’m really proud of it,” Wilde tells ET over the phone. The
actress, pregnant with her second child, locked the final editjust a week ahead
of its official release on Thursday.
“They are incredibly
creative people and they're so good at what they do,” Wilde says of directing Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Chad Smith, and newest member, Josh Klinghoffer. “They're
so interesting that you really just have to let them have a free space to play in
and set them free and they just do 90 percent of the work for you.”
Considering the Red Hot Chili Peppers has been making music
videos for three decades and won eight MTV Video Music Awards, Wilde was
understandably intimidated. “They’ve made a lot of really good videos,” she
says.
“I pitched them my treatment and they chose it based on the
treatment and they gave me a shot and I'll forever be grateful because it
served as another type of launch pad for me,” Wilde says of the opportunity,
which serves her larger goal of getting into directing. "I really found it to be a
logical way to get your feet wet in directing because it is essentially an exercise
in making a silent film. You have to learn how to tell a story without dialogue
-- that is really essential.”
MORE: Anthony Kiedis Talks RHCP's 'Different' Sound on Danger Mouse-Produced Album
And, Wilde says that directing has only helped her craft: “Directing
non-actors is a way to witness what happens when real emotions happen in front
of a camera and how real people actually behave when they're being watched as opposed
to people who are trained to perform. So, that's one reason why it’s been so informative
for me.”