Olivia Wilde has revealed she based Chris Pine’s character in Don’t Worry Darling on Jordan Peterson, describing him as a “hero to the incel community.”
For those who don’t know him, Peterson is a retired professor, clinical psychologist, and popular online personality from Canada. He rose to fame in 2016 after criticizing a bill that introduced gender identity and expression as prohibited grounds for discrimination.
He’s since become one of the most prominent conservative speakers on the internet, though he often opens himself up to wide-ranging mockery for his ignorance and behavior; for example, in one clip he shouted: “Up yours, woke moralists. We’ll see who cancels who!”
In Don’t Worry Darling, Pine plays Frank, the founder of the suspicious utopian community at the core of the film – and Peterson was a major inspiration for the character.
Chris Pine’s character in Don’t Worry Darling was inspired by Jordan Peterson, Olivia Wilde reveals
While speaking to Interview Magazine ahead of the film’s release, which has been engulfed in controversy after Shia LaBeouf claimed he wasn’t actually fired from the movie, Wilde discussed incels and Pine’s antagonist.
She said: “[Incels are] basically disenfranchised, mostly white men, who believe they are entitled to sex from women.
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“And they believe that society has now robbed them – that the idea of feminism is working against nature, and that we must be put back into the correct place.”
Wilde then revealed how Pine’s character was inspired by Peterson, branding him a “pseudo-intellectual hero to the incel community.”
“They’re actually succeeding in many different ways. But this guy Jordan Peterson is someone that legitimizes certain aspects of their movement because he’s a former professor, he’s an author, he wears a suit, so they feel like this is a real philosophy that should be taken seriously,” she added.
Don’t Worry Darling hits cinemas on September 23.