‘There was a lot of pre-existing comfort and trust’ ... Norton and Wilde. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian View image in fullscreen ‘There was a lot of pre-existing comfort and trust’ ... Norton and Wilde. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian Film Interview ‘I feel both thrilled and ruined by this’: Olivia Wilde and Edward Norton on making sex comedy The Invite Catherine Shoard Their movie about marital bed death is this summer’s buzziest, funniest film. Its director and her co-star talk self-loathing, psychosexuality and unexpected eruptions
Fri 3 Jul 2026 06.00 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google E arlier this week, Edward Norton took a night flight from Los Angeles to London and felt so dreadful the next day he decided to get a massage. “I hadn’t had one in such a long time,” he says, “and I almost started crying. You’re like: ‘Oh! Ah!’”
He has heard similar sounds from cinemas screening his new movie, The Invite, which is about the devastating impact of marriage on your sex life. “People are almost tearful. They’re like: ‘I haven’t had a good, adult laugh that made me feel seen in a long time.’”
He grins, all tan and relaxation. “Most people feel alone inside the dysfunction of their relationship – worried it’s only the two of you having these problems. Universality is a relief. It lets you forgive yourself a lot.”
Next to him nods Olivia Wilde , his co-star and director. “My favourite audience laugh,” she says, “is that which seems to say: ‘I thought I was the only one!’ It’s like ha-ha-ha-aaah ; a little bit of a moan. When you hear yourself laugh at something that feels revealing, and then someone else does so too, the quiet shame you felt is immediately relieved.”
View image in fullscreen Bed death … Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen as a married couple in The Invite. Photograph: Adam Newport-Berra/PA Seeing and feeling seen by The Invite is cathartic. It’s also far from flattering. Wilde plays Angela, a frustrated artist married to failed musician Joe (Seth Rogen). They share a 12-year-old but not much else. When their daughter is on a sleepover, Angela asks the upstairs neighbours – smooth former firefighter Hawk (Norton) and his girlfriend, Piña, a therapist played by Penélope Cruz – down for supper. It is not a spoiler to say the evening does not go well, or as predicted. Think Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with extra pegging.
Of the four characters, only Piña is someone you might actually aspire to be, probably because she is a proxy for the film’s consultant: Belgium-born, Manhattan-based psychotherapist Esther Perel. Piña voices many of Perel’s key theories – most pertinently that all relationships end but can sometimes be rebooted with the same person. One Perel idea, which isn’t spoken aloud but seems to hover significantly, is that “bed death” is an inevitable byproduct of the American dream.
Yes, says Wilde keenly. “It’s that American sense of duty: I have begun this marriage, I will complete it, I will muscle through . The puritanical roots of our culture mean it’s not only shameful to value pleasure, but also to admit defeat.”
For women in such a society, she says, there remains “a sense of achievement in marriage. You have signed a contract that will keep you safe and feels like success. Pleasure and your continuing exploration of it is secondary to keeping the family unit intact.”
Wilde and Norton each have two children; she with her ex-husband, Jason Sudeikis, he with his wife of 14 years, produce…