Olivia Wilde on her Boston-area roots, her love of Diane Keaton, and the discomfort of ‘The Invite’

Olivia Wilde’s new movie “The Invite” is essentially a stage play put on film.

Minus a brief opening scene, the entirety of “The Invite” takes place in a single apartment. Angela (Wilde) and Joe (Seth Rogen) are a long-married couple who, based on their constant arguing, should probably consider divorce.

The latest catalyst of their habitual bickering? Without consulting Joe, Angela has invited their upstairs neighbors (Edward Norton and Penélope Cruz) to an intimate dinner party. (Mild spoiler: The word “intimate” carries a double meaning.)

Though the couple’s apartment is meticulously designed, the sets are spare enough that they could be re-created in a black box theater. And the film’s dialogue, co-written by Rashida Jones (“Parks & Recreation”) and Will McCormack (“Toy Story 4”) crackles with a passive-aggressive intensity that could carry to the cheap seats.

The approach makes sense, given that “The Invite” is based on the Catalan play “Els Veïns de Dalt” (“The Upstairs Neighbors”), which later became the 2020 Spanish film “Sentimental.” But it also makes sense that Wilde — directing her third feature film after the 2019 comedy “Booksmart” and the 2022 thriller “Don’t Worry Darling” — was drawn to the material.

Before she began acting professionally as a teenager in films like “The Girl Next Door” and shows like “The O.C.,” Wilde attended Phillips Academy in Andover, where she was wowed by the school’s rigorous approach to fine arts.

“They had what, to my 13-year-old mind, was unlike anything I had ever experienced,” Wilde told Boston.com. “They had a main stage theater, they had studio theaters, black box theaters. I’ve been acting for a long time, but I had never had access to facilities like that.

“You got real professional experience,” Wilde continued. “Professional meaning not actually professional, but I was in a student producer program, and we produced about 12 shows a year. It was robust, supportive, and creative, and I loved that.”

With the arrival of “The Invite” on digital demand after a successful theatrical run earlier this summer, Wilde sat down with Boston.com to chat about improvising with Seth Rogen, playing a character desperately trying to “keep their s*** together,” and why “The Invite” is dedicated to Diane Keaton.

Note: This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.

All four performances in this movie are great, but I really responded to your character in particular. How do you get into the headspace of this character who’s wracked by this bone-deep anxiety and pathological people-pleasing?

Wilde: I think it’s really fun to watch someone working very hard at something. If you’re watching a film about a concert pianist and you’re watching them work very hard to create [music], it’s thrilling to see that effort on screen. It’s a core human quality. 

I love the idea of watching someone who has to work equally hard to keep their s*** together.

For me, that character was all about the effort it takes to stay in control and the enormous amount of anxiety she’s dealing with, along with the constant effort to conceal it. 

I also loved the idea that she would change so much by the end of the film once she confronts her worst fear, which is losing control. Once that happens, you sense this kind of exhale, this release. And you have hope for her, whether that means she stays in this relationship or not. 

Was it always the plan to have the lead role in “The Invite” along with directing it? Was that something you advocated for?

Wilde: No, I didn’t advocate. The cast asked me to do it.

Oh, really?

Wilde: Absolutely. I didn’t have any intention of playing the lead role at all. 

In that case, what was it that attracted you to Rashida and Will’s script as a director?

Wilde: When I read the screenplay, I was so excited about the opportunity it presented for something really original, not only in terms of the material itself, but in terms of the experience I had always really wanted to have as a director: To gather a group of actors and shoot something in order, having rehearsed the film ahead of time, and to do that on 35 mm.

I assume that shooting everything in order helped make it feel more like a play?

Wilde: Yeah! None of us had ever shot anything in order. But it allowed for this experience that I’ve always wanted to have, and Penélope, Edward, and Seth were all really enthusiastic about it. We felt like a small theater company coming together to do something that would be entirely focused on the process, as opposed to making something focused on a result. 

It certainly felt very personal.

The characters that Edward, Seth, and Penélope play are not characters that anyone else was ever going to play. They reshaped them into their own ideas, and it was so thrilling. I’m a huge fan of [Hong Kong filmmaker] Wong Kar-Wai, and he talks about how you don’t know what a film is until your actor tells you what it is, and you don’t know who a character is until your actor embodies them. 

Because good art is confession, and seeing that kind of process happen was fascinating. Seeing all of us really pouring ourselves into these characters and being quite vulnerable at times was thrilling.

You just mentioned Wong Kar-Wai. When I was watching, I thought of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and Mike Nichols. Was he on your mind as you made “The Invite”?

Wilde: I mean, I’m a major Mike Nichols fan. He’s my main source of inspiration. I think he’s the GOAT. For me, “Virginia Woolf”  was my North star, and we very purposefully planted Easter eggs throughout the film that are very specific references for the real “Virginia Woolf” fans out there — things in the production design, subtle little clues in the script. 

But I also drew from other Nichols movies. I think both the cinematography of “The Graduate” and the process of “The Graduate,” which involved a lot of rehearsal. And then “The Birdcage,” which is the ultimate chaotic dinner party comedy of errors that has real soul and heart to it. It’s all about family in the end, and I think that our film really was striving to have that same kind of contexture of heartbreak combined with a lot of hilarity.

At the end of the film, there’s a title card dedicated to “Diane.” Was that Diane Keaton?

Wilde: Yes.

Can you speak about what she meant to you, or what she inspired in “The Invite” in particular?

Wilde: Diane Keaton is a source of inspiration to me, not only as someone who I had the chance to work with, and who was a very kind and supportive person in this business. She really encouraged me to be bold, and to take my voice seriously, and certainly encouraged me to direct. 

She also was completely singular in the way she approached her work and the characters she created. I don’t think “The Invite” would exist without the films of Diane Keaton.

Obviously “Annie Hall” was an influence on my character in particular. Diane would play these women who were deeply fractured, but incredibly soft — a combination of shards of anxiety, but wrapped in something very tender. She was so empathetic towards her characters, and was just so funny. 

I just don’t think I could have made it without the influence she had on me as an actor and as a person, so it felt appropriate.

I really enjoyed this movie, and really enjoyed seeing a movie just fully focused on adults, telling an adult story. Is that something that you’re really trying to champion?

Wilde: It’s funny, because when I made “Booksmart,” I wanted to tell a story about teenagers that isn’t at all patronizing in the way that some teenage content is. I wanted to get back into the mindset of my teenage self, and give it the kind of high stakes it deserves, because that’s how it would feel. 

For “The Invite,” I wanted to play a character who was my own age and to tell a story about relationships at a certain point in life. It’s not the very beginning of the relationship, it’s not about when you’re having a child, it’s not about old age. It’s this middle part, where people often lose a sense of purpose. They have successfully merged lives, which was what they were told to do to be a successful married couple. And yet that leaves a lot of people feeling really unsteady, because they don’t know who they are individually anymore.

I think that’s an interesting part of life. I have loved movies about that part of life for a long time, but I was excited to be able to tell it my way. Even though you think, Oh, I’m an adult now, this is an adult story, you’re still naive. And there’s still so much to learn. 

“The Invite” is available to rent on most major platforms.