What you need to know
Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman are making this year’s Sundance Film Festival a hot topic.
At the premiere of indie filmmaker Greg Araki’s I Want Your Sex on Friday, January 23, at the Utah Festival, Wilde, 41, appeared as a provocative artist who hires 22-year-old Hoffman to be his sex sub. The two actors perform a variety of kinky acts on screen, including bondage, costumes, and dildos.
As Wilde recalled in a Q&A after the Eccles Theater premiere, she and Araki, 66, knew that the characters’ relationship “had to be more than just domme-subs. There had to be something that, in some strange little way, actually rooted for them and made them feel like there was real chemistry and that they loved each other.”
After joining the project and discussing potential partners for the scene, Wilde said, “The moment I met Cooper, I thought, ‘Oh, I love you.'”
Arturo Holmes/Getty
Never miss a news. Sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up to date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to human interest stories.
Co-stars on I Want Your Sex include Charli XCX (one of the singer-songwriter’s three Sundance premieres this year), Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Daveed Diggs, Johnny Knoxville and Margaret Cho. Co-written by Araki and Carly Sciortino, the film centers on “a sex-positive Los Angeles art gallery that hosts entertaining, mysterious, and sadomasochistic games,” according to Sundance’s official synopsis.
The magazine added that the “outrageous and playful sexual movement” challenges “false notions of sexual freedom and autonomy, such as kink, predation, exposure and generational trends.”
“I was really excited about Greg’s enthusiasm for the media in this process,” Wilde said during a Q&A alongside Araki, Hoffman, Gooding and Wonders. “I wish more people would make movies like his.”
Araki praised his film muse, saying, “I’ve been a long-time fan of Olivia ever since. Remember when she was the hot bisexual girl on The OC?…I think Olivia is a real, old-school movie star.”
Arturo Holmes/Getty
“Ninety-nine percent of it is casting,” said the filmmaker (who currently has 11 films premiering at Sundance). When he met Wilde, he recalled: “I said, ‘I don’t want to compromise for this role, so just go ahead and take the plunge.’ And she said, ‘Let’s go.’ And the rest was history. And when Olivia was in a movie, everyone wanted to be in it. ”
“Honestly, I never thought I’d get cast, so I just threw my hat in the ring and kept getting closer and closer,” Hoffman quipped. “Then they told me I got the job, and I thought, ‘Oh, I have to do this.'” And I’m so happy I did it. ”
Lacey Terrell/Courtesy of Sundance Institute
I Want Your Sex is one of two projects to feature Wilde at Sundance Fest in 2026. She also directed and stars in The Invite, which premieres Saturday, January 24th.
The 2026 Sundance Film Festival will be held from January 22nd to February 1st in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. This is the last iteration of the fest to be held there prior to its move to Boulder, Colorado in 2027, and the first time it has been held since the death of founder Robert Redford.
