Olivia Wilde Felt Immediate Chemistry with Cooper Hoffman as Her Sexual Sub for Sundance's “I Want Your Sex”: 'I Love You'
- - Olivia Wilde Felt Immediate Chemistry with Cooper Hoffman as Her Sexual Sub for Sundance's “I Want Your Sex”: 'I Love You'
Jack SmartJanuary 24, 2026 at 6:59 PM
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Arturo Holmes/Getty
Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde -
I Want Your Sex, from writer-director Gregg Araki, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 23
The movie stars Olivia Wilde as an artist who hires Cooper Hoffman as her sexual muse, plus Charli xcx, Daveed Diggs, Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Johnny Knoxville and Margaret Cho
During the premiere's Q&A, Wilde recalled finding immediate chemistry with Hoffman
Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman are making this year’s Sundance Film Festival a steamy one.
The premiere of indie filmmaker Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex at the Utah festival on Friday, Jan. 23 saw Wilde, 41, as a provocative artist who hires Hoffman, 22, and makes him her sexual sub. The two actors engage in a variety of kinky activities — bondage, costumes and dildos included — onscreen.
As Wilde recalled during the Eccles Theater premiere's post-screening Q&A, she and Araki, 66, knew the relationship between the characters "had to be so much more than just dom-sub. There had to be something that made you actually, weirdly, in a teeny-tiny way, root for them and to feel that they had actual chemistry and kind of loved each other."
After signing on to the project and debating her potential scene partners, Wilde said, "the second I met Cooper, I was like, 'huh, I love you.'"
Arturo Holmes/Getty
Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde
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I Want Your Sex costars Charli xcx — one of three Sundance premieres the singer-songwriter appears in this year — as well as Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Daveed Diggs, Johnny Knoxville and Margaret Cho. Co-written by Araki and Karley Sciortino, it centers on “a sex-forward Los Angeles art gallery [that] hosts a delightfully enigmatic sadomasochistic game,” per an official Sundance synopsis.
The "outrageously playful sexual crusade," it adds, challenges “misaligned conceptions of kink/predation, exhibition, and generational predispositions toward sexual freedom and autonomy.”
"I was just so excited by Greg's enthusiasm for the medium for the process," said Wilde during the Q&A alongside Araki, Hoffman, Gooding and Wonders. "I wish more people made movies like him."
Araki praised his screen muse, saying, "I've been a long time fan of Olivia's since — remember when she was the bisexual hot girl [on The O.C.]? ... I think Olivia is a true, old-time, movie star."
Arturo Holmes/Getty
Mason Gooding, Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman, Gregg Araki and Chase Sui Wonders
Directing a movie "is 99% casting," said the filmmaker (who has now premiered 11 titles at the Sundance Film Festival). Meeting Wilde, he recalled, "I just said, 'To do this part, you got to just not give a f--- and just want to just f---ing take the plunge because I don't want to compromise it. And she said, 'Let's go.' And the rest was history And then once Olivia was doing the movie, everybody wanted to be in it."
"I honestly didn't think I'd get cast, so I just threw my hat in the ring and kept getting closer and closer," quipped Hoffman. "And then they said I got the job. And I was like, 'Oh s---, I got to go do this.' And I'm very happy I did.”
Lacey Terrell/ Courtesy of Sundance Institute
I Want Your Sex
I Want Your Sex is one of two projects featuring Wilde at the 2026 Sundance fest. She also directs and stars in The Invite, premiering Saturday, Jan. 24.
The 2026 Sundance Film Festival runs from Jan. 22 to Feb. 1 in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s the last iteration of the fest to be held there ahead of a move to Boulder, Colorado in 2027, and the first to be held after the passing of its founder Robert Redford.
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