Olivia Wilde on the Fake Grass, Real Pod, and ‘Be Grace’ Auditions

Olivia Wilde once crawled across an audition room’s fake AstroTurf to read for the part Sandra Bullock made iconic in Gravity. On the A24 Podcast, trading worst-audition stories with her new co-star Seth Rogen, she finally admitted how elaborate that tryout was, and remembered two other “hideously embarrassing” near-misses for Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life and a Rock of Ages read alongside Tom Cruise. Every callback went to someone else, and every callback became a major hit. The actress who missed them all now has a Sundance premiere of her own, with Rogen beside her in The Invite.

Inside the ‘Real Pod’

The Gravity audition was no ordinary cattle call. Wilde remembered that she and a rotating roster of A-list peers were put inside a “real pod” to perform, in a setup elaborate enough that everyone who reached it assumed they were in contention for the lead. In the full podcast transcript, she adds: “I think quite a few of us thought we were getting the role in ‘Gravity’ that was Sandra Bullock’s.”

That peer group was wide. Wilde named Kate Hudson, Jessica Chastain, and Sienna Miller as fellow contenders on the A24 episode, and added that “I feel like Hathaway’s probably in the pod.” The transcribed conversation also catches her pointing to Natalie Portman as “definitely in the pod.” The audition itself was built around the film’s most punishing sequence, Stone’s crawl back to Earth after reentry, and in the casting room that meant “crawling out of the pod back onto Earth” on a patch of “fake grass.” Rogen called the setup “the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” joking that Wilde had to sell the scene on the “AstroTurf of an audition room.”

Wilde also remembered the second tryout she put on the podcast’s shortlist. It was for Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, which she called “hideously embarrassing.” Rogen’s follow-up came next.

• Gravity won a leading seven Academy Awards at the 86th ceremony, including Best Director for Alfonso Cuarón.
• Gravity earned Sandra Bullock a Best Actress nomination at the same ceremony.
• Gravity grossed $723.2 million worldwide against a production budget reported between $80 million and $130 million, per the encyclopedia entry on Gravity.

“Be Grace”

Malick’s answer, as Wilde told it, was two words. Not a scene to study, not a side to play, just “be grace.” Her response, recreated on the podcast, was a hushed wandering through the room: “Oh wow. Look at all this. Oh, wow. This is crazy.” She laughed through the retelling. Rogen’s reaction: “Oh no.”

Be grace.

The Tree of Life casting seemed to want one specific type of performer, and the open call wasn’t built for everyone. Wilde moved on with her career, turning toward writing and directing. On the podcast, more than a decade later, she laughed through the retelling.

Tom Cruise Said “You Got This”

The third audition Wilde put on the list wasn’t mortifying. It was almost sweet. For Rock of Ages, she sang opposite Tom Cruise in a reading of Foreigner’s “I Want To Know What Love Is,” a song she flagged on the podcast as “not an easy song.”

Cruise, in Wilde’s telling, was “such a nice man” and “so encouraging” through the read. His one note was a steady “you got this” between takes. The audition didn’t land. But Wilde remembered Cruise’s tone as the part of the day that didn’t sting.

Rock of Ages was the outlier on her list, the near-miss with a kind ending. The other two stories carried weight, and Rogen had his own version waiting in the wings.

The Tape Rogen Wants Buried

Rogen’s worst audition wasn’t for a hit. It was for Gigli, the 2003 Martin Brest film with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. Rogen read for the role that went to Justin Bartha, a character described as cognitively impaired. He went all in on the read.

If that tape got out, it would destroy my career. It would end me. It would fully end me.

Wilde, in the moment, pushed back on his self-assessment. Rogen’s Gigli tape, she argued, “might be better than me singing with Tom Cruise.” Rogen was unmoved. The idea of the footage ever surfacing still scares him.

The pair recorded the A24 episode to mark The Invite, their first co-starring role together. Rogen and Wilde go back further than the film, to a table read for Knocked Up where Wilde auditioned and lost. That first failure, she said, ended with “obviously not getting the part.” On the podcast, both actors admitted there are tapes from earlier in their careers they would not want to see released.

Wilde laughed about it. Rogen laughed harder. Both had built careers on the far side of that tape. From there the pair turned to The Invite, the film that brought them together as co-stars.

From AstroTurf to Sundance

The Invite premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, where the festival program’s listing for The Invite describes the picture as “a fiercely energized chamber dramedy.” The cast pairs Wilde and Rogen with Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton, two couples caught in one long, escalating evening. Will McCormack and Rashida Jones wrote the screenplay. Wilde’s reviews for The Invite tracked the response from opening weekend.

Behind the camera, Wilde pushed the film into a process she trusts: shooting on 35mm, in chronological order, with the cast workshopping scenes as they went. The festival blurb calls the result “a universe of space within one location.” Sundance listed The Invite as an in-person-only screening at the festival.

The road that opened up because of those three missed calls is now her own. With The Invite, she gets the Sundance stage and an A24 banner. Rogen is her co-star, not her competition. The pod audition is, she made clear, a story she can laugh about now. The footage is still out there somewhere.