Chris Pine Addresses Harry Styles Spit Rumor, Explains What Really Happened: 'We Had This Little Joke'

MARK SELIGER

Chris Pine is reflecting on the frenzy of attention placed on Don't Worry Darling's cast and crew.

The actor, who next stars in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, told Esquire that if there was drama on the set of the thriller, directed by Olivia Wilde, then he wasn't aware of it. The movie also starred Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Gemma Chan and Nick Kroll.

"If there was drama, there was drama," he said, adding, "I absolutely didn't know about it, nor really would I have cared. If I feel badly, it's because the vitriol that the movie got was absolutely out of proportion with what was onscreen."

RELATED: A Complete Timeline of the Don't Worry Darling Drama

About the movie's premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September, when the cast's red carpet appearances were scrutinized and moments from interviews went viral on social media, Pine said things got "swept up" and turned into something "ridiculous."

"Venice was normal things getting swept up in a narrative that people wanted to make, compounded by the metastasizing that can happen in the Twittersphere. It was ridiculous," he said.

Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images From left: Gemma Chan, Harry Styles, Sydney Chandler, Olivia Wilde, Chris Pine, Florence Pugh and Nick Kroll at the Venice Film Festival Sept. 5, 2022

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Pine, 42, joked about the memes generated of himself zoning out mid-interview while at the film festival: "All the memes I saw about my face in Venice made me f---ing laugh. ... Sometimes the question's not that interesting and you just f---ing zone out, and you're looking at a ceiling because it's really pretty."

In an accompanying "Explain This" video interview for Esquire, Pine addressed the viral conspiracy theory that Styles, 29, spit on him at the screening of the movie while Pine sat between the pop star and director/costar Wilde, 38.

MARK SELIGER

"Harry did not spit on me," said Pine, whose rep previously denied that it happened in a statement to PEOPLE. "Harry's a very kind guy. ... I'm flying back from Venice and I'm sleeping, having a great time on the plane, I love planes, and [my publicist] wakes me up in a, you know, state and said, 'We have to craft a message about what happened in Venice.' And I was like, 'About what?' 'About Harry spitting on you,' which I had no idea what happened."

He continued, "She showed me the thing and it does look, indeed, like Harry's spitting on me. He didn't spit on me."

RELATED VIDEO: Did Harry Styles Spit on Chris Pine? Internet Dissects Viral Moment from 'Don't Worry Darling' Premiere

"He leaned down and I think he said, 'It's just words, isn't it?' Because we had this little joke, we're all jet-lagged, we're all trying to answer these questions, and sometimes when you're doing these press things your brain goes befuddled and you start speaking jibberish," explained Pine. "And we had a joke, 'It's just words, man.' "

During an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in late September, Wilde addressed the rumor that Styles spit on Pine, saying, "Spitgate, which you might have heard about, it's a perfect example of like ... people will look for drama anywhere they can. Harry did not spit on Chris, in fact."

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is in theaters March 31.