Olivia Wilde says audiences are warming to a kind of love story Hollywood rarely told — the older woman and the younger man — and she thinks the shift is overdue.

Speaking at the Los Angeles premiere of I Want Your Sex on July 28, 2026, Wilde celebrated what she called a break from formula. "The fact that audiences are really open to a trend that for so long was dominated by the traditional older man, younger woman narrative," she said. "I think it's exciting that people are breaking out of their boxes in different ways" (The Hollywood Reporter).

The film gives that dynamic a sharp comic edge. Directed by Gregg Araki and co-written by Karley Sciortino, I Want Your Sex is an erotic comedy starring Wilde as Erika Tracy, a woman whose 23-year-old workplace subordinate, played by Cooper Hoffman, becomes her sexual muse. The cast also includes Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho, and Daveed Diggs (The Hollywood Reporter). Wilde cited Madonna's 1991 documentary Truth or Dare as a major inspiration for her character (The Hollywood Reporter).

Araki, whose last feature came out more than a decade ago (The Hollywood Reporter), framed the older-woman-younger-man pairing as part of a wider cultural rebalancing. "As women gain more power and more income and wealth," he said at the same premiere, "I think that it's great that the tables get evened out a little bit" (The Hollywood Reporter). Speaking with Variety ahead of an Outfest appearance, Araki also discussed intimacy coordinators on set and shifting Gen Z attitudes toward sex on screen (Variety).

The film's festival run has been building toward this moment. I Want Your Sex screened at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in January (The Hollywood Reporter), where The Hollywood Reporter reviewed Wilde and Hoffman's performances (The Hollywood Reporter). Collider called it a film Gen Z needs to see for its frank treatment of sex on screen (Collider). Vogue placed it within a broader trend of Hollywood age-gap romances, noting that Erika's relationship with her younger lover includes BDSM play (Vogue). The film has also played the Rehoboth Beach Pride film festival (WBOC16, Facebook).

Australian audiences get their turn next. I Want Your Sex opens at Dendy Cinemas in Australia on August 27, 2026 (Dendy Cinemas, Instagram).

For Araki, whose name has been attached to the American indie landscape since the 1990s, the film marks a return after a long quiet stretch. For Wilde, it is a leading role that lets her carry the kind of story she argues the industry has been slow to tell. And for audiences, it arrives amid a genuine wave of age-gap romances — one where, as both star and director see it, the tables are finally turning.