Olivia Wilde was born to withstand the heat.
This year, the Don't Worry Darling director served as one of ELLE's Women in Hollywood nominees. During the Oct. 17 celebration in Los Angeles honoring the group of women—which also included Anne Hathaway, Issa Rae and Sydney Sweeney, among others—Olivia opened up about the reason she's determined to forge ahead in her career, despite the outside noise surrounding it.
(Her speech comes just hours after she addressed accusations made by a former nanny and nearly two months after she spoke out about the going chatter that has engulfed Don't Worry Darling).
Noting that high-powered events for women such as this one serve as "crucial" in her speech, Olivia told the crowd, "They offer us a chance to look into each other's eyes and say, ‘Keep going.' Because, let's face it, it's not always easy to keep going."
She continued, "In fact, sometimes it's tempting to excuse ourselves from the burning hellfire of the misogyny that defines this business and say, ‘Good night, good luck, I'd rather eat glass for a living.'"
"But we won't let each other give up," she added. "Recently, I've had several opportunities to personally experience this power of encouragement from other women in this business."
And as Olivia noted, those moments of encouragement have served as a turning point.
"Because they're maybe our most honest acknowledgement of a constant battle we are all fighting, in which we are allies," she added. "Relying on each other not to fall back and stop advancing because we are up against a seriously massive force of opposition that has, for centuries, tried to rein us in. If one of us steps back, we all step back."
But the 38-year-old is more than determined to step forward.
"No matter how much the patriarchy relies on us to cut each other down in order to weaken our collective power, we have to resist the urge to play by their self-serving rules," the mom of two, who shares her kids with ex Jason Sudeikis, noted. "Remind the world and specifically our daughters that we aren't so easily manipulated…I feel energized by you all, and I feel motivated to keep fighting through the hellfire. In some ways, the challenges are all a part of it, right? Real badges of honor, par for the course."
And despite the ongoing rumors that have followed Don't Worry Darling even before its Sept. 23 release, Olivia managed to poke fun at all the drama at the end of her speech.
"Let's face it: You are not a woman in Hollywood until you've begged to be placed into a medically induced coma until your press tour is finished," she said. "Until then, you are just a woman residing in or around the Hollywood area. I love my life. I love my job."