WHO IS SHE?:
Nineteen-year-old beauty Olivia Wilde is the striking co-star of Fox TV's Skin , a modern Romeo and Juliet romance between a D.A.'s son and a porn king's daughter. In real life, she's the daughter of a 60 Minutes producer and a National Geographic writer who bucked the family's journalistic tendencies in favor of acting.
WHAT HAS SHE DONE?:
Nothing...yet! The virtually unknown theater actress sent audition tapes to Hollywood while still a high school student at Phillips Academy Andover, the prestigious Massachusetts boarding school. Five months later she scored a part in the porn-to-high school comedy The Girl Next Door with 24 's Elisha Cuthbert, which led to her lead role in Jerry Bruckheimer's Skin .
WHY DO WE CARE?:
This gorgeous, 5' 7½" Pisces, with the blue-green eyes and silky blonde hair, beat out rival knockout Dominique Swain for the lead role of Jewel in Skin . Born in New York and raised in D.C., this cream-complexioned East Coaster stands way out in front of Hollywood's army of over-processed beauties.
Q: In June 2002, you were a high school senior in New England. By November you were a Hollywood player. How did that happen so quickly?
Olivia Wilde: I got an internship with the casting director of The Girl Next Door . I would hold the clipboard and help them in their casting sessions and get them lunch. They were looking for a character, the bitch at school, and I happened to be there every day and knew all the lines, so the director's like, "Let's give it to Olivia!" It was really funny because that movie had the porn twist and then I went right into Skin .
Q: You beat out nearly 700 girls, including big names like Dominique Swain, for the role of Jewel in Skin . The producers chalk it up to the chemistry between you and co-star D.J. Cotrona. How do you explain this chemistry?
OW: Coming out of nowhere, D.J. and I both felt a certain amount of adrenaline going into that test. For the pilot, the chemistry was great because we were having so much fun. We would have done anything they told us to do. We were so young and naïve and anxious and wide-eyed and happy to be there. It was three o'clock in the morning, we were on the beach, being hit by waves, lying in the sand, and we were just so happy.
Q: Skin is being packaged as a modern Romeo and Juliet story, but there's a porn backdrop. How does that work?
OW: It's a timeless story and it's a great way to create this really interesting juxtaposition of the pure romance of Romeo and Juliet versus the porn. The cool thing about the show is in the pilot we lose our virginities, which is rare in television. It's cool that the writers didn't take 13 episodes to get to the virginity thing. We're done with that; now we can concentrate on the realistic repercussions of a major thing like that. It's cool because it's Romeo and Juliet brought to this realistic conflict and this realistic time in adolescence. That's why it's a great place to start. Now as that continues and gets more intense as the young lovers' lives start to spin out of control, the relationship develops from the Romeo and Juliet story into their own stories, their own journeys.
Q: Have you ever had a serious boyfriend your parents disapproved of?
OW: I went through a phase when I was 13 where I would only fall in love with people over the age of 19 or 20. I never had a real relationship with any of these people, but it was definitely the guy I wanted to hang out with and wanted to go on trips with. I would be like, "But, Daddy, he's a musician!" [ Laughs ] Q: Is that when they sent you off to boarding school?
OW: When I was in seventh or eighth grade, I started developing my rebellious streak and started taking some trips on my own to New York and Philadelphia and just kind of taking off and doing my own thing. Not because I didn't like my family, but because I was just really restless. Maybe that was part of the reason I was encouraged to go to boarding school. But the other part was I just wanted more competition, and Andover had a really great theater department, so that's how I ended up in New England, but I was definitely not happy to be thrust in the suburbs of Massachusetts.
Q: How else did your middle school rebellion manifest itself?
OW: In seventh grade I shaved the back of my head. I had piercings when I was 11. I got a tattoo when I was 13. I did all kinds of typical stuff. I was not a crazy punk, but I was definitely into being an individual and doing anything I could to stray from conformity. It's a typical part of adolescence, but I thought I was special. So I ended up in boarding school, where that wasn't allowed to happen, and they whipped me into shape. I hardly made it through; I think my parents were just glad to see me at graduation. [ Laughs ] No, I ended up doing really well, and I did a lot of theater. I became the producer of their student theater department.
Q: Any wild boarding school stories?
OW: I was born in New York and grew up in the middle of D.C., so by the time I got to boarding school, which was out in the suburbs of Boston, I was kind of stir crazy. When I first started boarding school, I was your typical cute, brazen freshman who was so confident and had no respect for the senior class and did whatever I wanted. By my senior year, I'd cleaned up my act.
Q: Away at boarding school, is it easier or harder to date?
OW: Dating is a little bit different in boarding school because it's all very intense, you know, drama, heartbreak. But you are on your own because there are no parents looking over your shoulder telling you who to date. The thing about boarding school is everyone launches themselves into really serious relationships really quickly, almost out of boredom. You live there and see the people every day. Two weeks in a boarding school relationship is like six months in a normal relationship.
Q: What kind of guys do you like in real life?
OW: I've gone out with all-American type guys before, but the guys I really tend to go for are guys that have a little bit of ethnic spice. I really like Italian guys.
Q: What was your exposure to pornography before you got cast in Skin and The Girl Next Door ?
OW: Nothing, really. I think every teenage girl gets exposed to porn eventually when her guy friends throw on a VHS in the middle of a party. I don't have a conservative family and I'm not conservative in my own life, so it's nothing I ever shunned. I'm a bit of a feminist, so I wouldn't say that I'm a complete porn advocate, because, of course, there are terrible things that happen to some of these young women, but I thought it was great that we were taking a huge business seriously and I couldn't think of better people to do it. When I originally saw the script for Skin and heard about the plot, I thought it was really cool.
Q: And now that you've started the show?
OW: I still haven't had that much exposure to it. The funniest thing is seeing the live porn on set. Obviously they're not doing that much now, but in the pilot it was another story. These girls were for real . It was a really short scene. They were just supposed to drop their clothes, and that was it, but they ended up shooting for like five hours. I mean, I was sent back to my trailer so I know it got juicy. [ Laughs ] I saw the girls walking around set. They refused to have robes. They're very confident, and I just thought it was fascinating. They take themselves and what they do very seriously. It's an extremely exclusive business. There are only about 200 real porn stars and they all know each other. Many of them are married to each other. I think that's interesting.
Q: Skin 's a prime time network show set against the backdrop of the adult film industry. Does this mean porn is officially mainstream?
OW: With Larry Flynt running for governor, with films like Wonderland and Girl Next Door , porn has been such a major part of our culture for so long that it's almost logical that it's finally being looked at by mainstream media. It's definitely a business that should be recognized in our culture. Billions of dollars are being spent on porn and people still shove it under the rug. But that worked for it in the past, because as long as it's this mystery, it's still really interesting. What's cool about Skin is we're not necessarily taking a look at the action of porn. We are looking at behind the scenes and the families and the porn stars and how they get into it, what happens when they're out of it. American society is sexually repressed, and it's refreshing that people are taking it more seriously and being a little bit more open about our fascination with porn. It's funny that it's all happening at once.
In the wake of declining ratings, the remaining episodes of The O.C. 's second season will see some changes designed to recapture some of the buzz, not to mention the viewers, that helped make the series a cultural phenomenon in its first year.
At the Television Critics Association press party Monday night, star Mischa Barton talked about her character Marissa's upcoming lesbian relationship with Olivia Wilde's Alex, and where she'd like to see the mouthy girl-next-door go in future episodes.
“I think people already know about the lesbian storyline,” Barton says. “Recently I've been hoping she'd redeem herself a little bit, but she's just the kind of girl who's all over the place. And I really wanted her to be quite challenging for me to play. I asked for it and I've gotten it. She's an alcoholic, she's experimental, she's got all this stuff going on. She's very complicated.”
As for the drama between the adults on the show – considered by many to be one of its most appealing elements – look for a bit of a shake-up in the Cohen household. “I have a very significant person from Sandy's past show up again, [played by guest actress] Kim Delaney,” hints star Peter Gallagher, who plays public defender and patriarch Sandy Cohen. “She's terrific. A wonderful actress. And it was delightful to work with her. I think this will be the season to test the strength of our marriage, and I think it's safe to say it's a strong one.”
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