Olivia Wilde (born Olivia Jane Cockburn;  /ˈkoʊbərn/; March 10, 1984) is an American actress and fashion model. She has appeared in a number of television and film productions such as The O.C., The Black Donnellys, House, Tron: Legacy, Cowboys & Aliens, and In Time.

 

Early life

Wilde was born in New York City. Her mother, Leslie Cockburn (née Redlich), is an American-born 60 Minutes producer and journalist. Her father, Andrew Myles Cockburn, a journalist, was born in London to British parents, and raised in Ireland; her uncles, Alexander Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, also worked as journalists. Wilde's older sister, Chloe Cockburn, is a civil rights attorney in New York; her aunt, Sarah Caudwell, was a writer, and her paternal grandfather, Claud Cockburn, was a novelist and journalist.
 

Wilde's father's upper-class British ancestors lived in several countries during the height of colonialism and the British Empire, including Peking (where her paternal grandfather was born), Calcutta, Bombay, Cairo, and Tasmania (one of her paternal great-great-grandfathers, Henry Arthur Blake, was Governor of Hong Kong). Wilde's father's ancestors include abolitionist and Anglican minister James Ramsay, politician George Arbuthnot, lawyer, judge, and literary figure Henry Cockburn, Lord Cockburn, Lord Provost of Edinburgh Sir William Arbuthnot, 1st Baronet, and Sir Thomas Osborne, 9th Baronet. Wilde's ancestry consists of English, Scottish, Irish, and German; she is also of more distant Sephardi Jewish descent from a paternal ancestor, Ralph Bernal (1783–1854), a British Whig politician and actor. 
 

Wilde has said that as a result of her parents' occupations, she has a "strong journalistic streak", being "really critical and analytical".  Both her parents were prominent in the Washington social scene, hosting dinner parties. Her mother once recounted a story of a four-year-old  Wilde eavesdropping one night on a conversation between diplomat Richard Holbrooke and singer Mick Jagger, until Jagger noticed her and shooed her to bed. She has wanted to become an actress since the age of two. For a short time, Wilde's family had a house in Guilford, Vermont. She attended Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C., as well as Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, graduating in 2002. She also studied acting at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, Ireland. Wilde had Christopher Hitchens as a babysitter.
 

Career

Wilde has appeared in the films The Girl Next Door, Alpha Dog, Conversations with Other Women and Turistas. She became known for her role on The O.C. as Alex Kelly, although she originally auditioned for the role of Marissa Cooper. She has also appeared in the Dashboard Confessional music video for "Stolen", and the French Kicks music video for "So Far We Are".
 

In 2007, Wilde was a part of the ensemble cast of the short-lived NBC mid-season drama The Black Donnellys. Her character, Jenny Reilly, was the lone principal female character in the series following the lives of an Irish-American family tied to organized crime in New York City. Also in 2007, Wilde appeared in the play Beauty on the Vine, a political thriller, playing three different characters.
 

Wilde joined the cast of the Fox medical drama House in September 2007, making her first appearance the episode "The Right Stuff". She played a secretive and bisexual young internist with Huntington's disease, Dr. Remy Hadley, nicknamed Thirteen, who was handpicked by House out of a number of applicants to join his team. Wilde told Star magazine how she sometimes took cues from her character even when she was not working, saying, "I'm now convinced that I'm a doctor. I mean, if someone says they have a pain, I'm like, 'Well, that's your spleen.'" On October 7, 2008, Wilde appeared in a video on funnyordie.com showing how much she enjoys registering early for the 2008 Presidential election, "Olivia Wilde Does It Early".

She appeared in the 2009 comedy film Year One.
 

In 2009, Wilde was ranked No. 1 on Maxim magazine's Hot 100. It was an honor which was included as an inside joke during the House episode "The Tyrant", where Dr. House, upon hearing about Dr. Foreman's recent firing of Thirteen, sarcastically teased: "My condolences. Although, it's not like she's the hottest woman in the world." She was also ranked No. 95 on the FHM 100 Sexiest Women of 2006. She was one of the key models in Abercrombie & Fitch's "Rising Stars" campaign in the summer of 2004.

 

Wilde at 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International

She played Quorra in Disney's Tron: Legacy, which opened on December 17, 2010. In the December 2010/January 2011 issue of Details Wilde was quoted as saying she panicked the first time she saw her costume for the movie: "I saw the boobs on the suit and I said, 'Oh hell no. I'm doing kicks and backflips in this thing?'" She also reprised her role as Quorra in Tron:

Uprising in the episode "Isolated". She was seen in flashbacks of Paige's past, where she befriended Quorra, not knowing that she was an ISO at the time.
 

Wilde played Ella Swenson in the science fiction Western film Cowboys & Aliens. Her character works with Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), and Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), to save their town from evil aliens. Wilde played Sabrina McKay in the comedy film The Change-Up. Her character is the love interest of Mitch Planko, who was played by Ryan Reynolds. In January 2011, it was announced that Wilde was cast alongside Chris Pine in the film People Like Us, released in June 2012.
 

In August 2011, it was announced Wilde would be leaving House to pursue her film career. Wilde left House a few months later, in the episode "Charity Case". In May 2012, Wilde returned to House for the final two episodes, "Holding On" and "Everybody Dies". The New York Observer has described Wilde as having a "throaty voice" and the "wide, teal-eyed charisma of Hollywood in the days of yore".She has cited Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener and Robin Wright Penn as acting inspirations
 

She won the 2006 US Comedy Arts Festival Film Discovery Jury Award for Best Actress for Bickford Shmeckler's Cool Ideas (2006), and in 2008 at the Teen Choice Awards, she was nominated for the Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Breakout Star Female for House. Also in 2008, Wilde was honored alongside Jesse Eisenberg with the Vail Film Festival Rising Star Award.
 

Personal life

Wilde has dual citizenship in the United States and Ireland. She derived her stage name "Wilde" from Irish author Oscar Wilde. She changed her surname while in high school, to honor the writers in her family, many of whom used pen names. She is a vegan, and was voted PETA's Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrity of 2010.
 

Relationships

Wilde married Tao Ruspoli, Italian-American documentary filmmaker, flamenco guitar player, and son of Alessandro Ruspoli, 9th Prince of Cerveteri, on June 7, 2003, in Washington, Virginia, on a school bus with only a pair of witnesses, when she was nineteen years old. She later said the marriage occurred in an abandoned school bus because it was the only place they could be completely alone, as the marriage was a secret at the time. On February 8, 2011, she and her husband announced that they were separating. Wilde filed for divorce in Los Angeles County Superior Court on March 3, 2011, citing "irreconcilable differences".The divorce was finalized on September 29, 2011. Wilde did not seek spousal support, and the pair reached a private agreement on property division. Wilde is currently dating actor and comedian Jason Sudeikis.
 

Political activism

Wilde is a board member of Artists for Peace and Justice, which provides education and health services in Haiti, and the ACLU of Southern California. Previously, Wilde was a supporter of the youth voter organization, 18 in '08. She serves on their advisory council and appeared in a public service announcement that debuted June 30, 2008. In 2008, Wilde campaigned with actors Justin Long and her former House castmate Kal Penn for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama.
 

She also appeared in the MoveOn.org mock-PSA "supporting" the right of the healthcare insurance industry.
 

Wilde was commended by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworkers' union, for supporting the Fair Foods campaign.