Olivia Wilde’s “mind went blank” when Penelope Cruz improvised a kiss with her while filming “The Invite.”
The “O.C.” alum recently told “Table Manners” podcast listeners that she was “so shocked” by the moment, which ended up in the final cut of the movie, that she “turned [her] head and looked directly into the lens.”
The 42-year-old recalled a camera operator saying her name, to which she — “for some reason” — replied, “Cut. Namaste!”
Wilde explained, “That’s the only thing that came to my mind. ‘Namaste.’ And everyone was like, ‘What?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know.’
“My mind went blank because I was so struck by this moment,” the actress continued. “I lost control. I was so madly in love with her.”
When the “Table Manners” co-hosts dubbed Cruz, 52, “the sexiest woman alive” during the July 8 episode, Wilde joked, “I was like, ‘Oh! Hair in the gate. Do [the scene] again!’”
Last month, Wilde spoke to Cruz in a Fandango interview about not being able to “possibly cut away” from her in scenes.
She highlighted “the way you touch your hair, the way you touch things around you” before adding, “There are several shots in the movie where the camera just stays on you for the entire scene and I was just like, ‘Sorry, Seth.’ I’m like, ‘She’s too interesting.’”
Wilde, who played Angela, initially disagreed with Cruz’s choice to wear a platinum blonde wig while portraying Pína.
“[Cruz] said, ‘I need it, because I need to depart from myself physically in order to transform personality-wise,’” Wilde dished to The Au Review last week. “The second she put that wig on, it was a full transformation,”
She credited her co-star with “layering in different elements” into the role “like a lasagna.”
The movie features Angela and her husband, Joe, played by Seth Rogen, being propositioned by Pína and Hawk, played by Edward Norton.
Wilde, notably, directed the emotional comedy — and it was her co-stars who urged her to play Angela.
“I was so struck [by the idea] because it hadn’t occurred to me,” she said on “Table Manners” earlier this month. “I weirdly had, like, imposter syndrome about acting in it but, for some reason, not about directing it.
“At this point, I feel like a much better director than actor,” Wilde added. “I was so happy I ended up jumping in.”
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