Olivia's fond memories of
a Wilde time in Ardmore
By Evan
Fanning
Sunday December 12 2010
Olivia Wilde is starring in a hugely futuristic film, but it is her past
in Ireland she keeps coming back to, discovers Evan Fanning
'WHAT was on TV in Ireland every day at 6.30pm when we were kids?"
Olivia Wilde asks in a state of almost giddy recall. I'm struggling to
think of the answer but, thankfully, she jumps in. "I'll sing you the
theme tune."
And then one of cinema's biggest rising stars breaks into song. "You
know we belong together/ You and I forever and ever/ No matter where you
are/ You're my guiding star."
Eventually, I guess it's Home and Away (I was a Neighbours man) and
Wilde crackles with laughter. The 26-year-old's trip down memory lane
has led her to her childhood summers spent in Ardmore, Co Waterford,
where her grandfather, the left-wing novelist and journalist Claud
Cockburn, set up home after leaving the UK shortly after the Second
World War.
Her father, the journalist Andrew Cockburn, left Ireland for Washington
DC, where he has written on politics and produced documentaries with his
wife, Olivia's mother, Leslie. It's fair to say that Wilde (she chose a
stage name in honour of Oscar) has some serious credentials.
In addition, her husband of seven years, documentary maker Tao Ruspoli,
is an Italian prince and it means that Wilde is technically a princess
-- but a princess whose formative years were spent on the Irish coast
horse riding, fishing and jumping off the pier into the icy Irish Sea.
And then there was the daily dash home to find out what was happening in
Summer Bay. "We were obsessed with Home and Away," she says. "I remember
sprinting down the hill to our friends Katy and Sarah's house, and my
sister and I would run in the door to watch it."
It's a long way from watching Australian soaps to becoming a Hollywood
princess, but it's a journey Wilde has made in quick time. She played
Mischa Barton's lesbian love interest in the hit TV series The OC, and
Dr Remy Hadley (better know as Thirteen) in the medical series House.
Now she has moved to the big screen with three upcoming movies which
will make her one of Hollywood's hottest young actresses.
Early next year, she will appear alongside Harrison Ford and Daniel
Craig in Jon Favreau's Western Cowboys and Aliens and opposite Russell
Crowe in Paul Haggis's The Next Three Days.
Before that, however, is the biggest role of them all, as the already
iconic Quorra in Disney's $200m cyber-epic Tron: Legacy, a sequel to the
1982 cult classic starring Jeff Bridges. "I could go on and on about her,"
she says. "I really do like her." And she has every reason to be happy.
Quorra is the sort of strong, sexy, stylish character that must be every
actress's dream.
"We had a few different sources of inspiration for her," Wilde says.
"About six months before we began shooting, I was reading about Joan of
Arc, specifically Mark Twain's book Personal Recollections of Joan of
Arc, which is amazing. I suddenly realised Joan of Arc is Quorra. I
didn't want her just to be typically sexy and strong. What I loved about
Joan of Arc was that she was incredibly powerful but also very innocent
and I thought that duality is really rare."
Tron: Legacy isn't just a regular film, but a coming together of fashion,
design, music (Daft Punk recorded the soundtrack) and performance in a
ground-breaking 3D movie. Even Wilde's appearance today -- grey woollen
jumper with high shoulders, pin-striped trousers and leopard print heels
-- coupled with her hair pulled tightly back into a ponytail, gives a
slightly futuristic feel. But it is more old-worldly thoughts that are
never far away as we speak.
The spectre of Ireland always loomed for Wilde and her family. Born in
New York, she was raised in Washington DC but each summer the family (she
has a 17-year-old brother Charles, and a 31-year-old sister, Chloe)
decamped to Ardmore.
"It was amazing," Wilde says. "I feel like the luckiest child in the
world because I got to grow up there. In summer is when you really grow
up. During the year, I would go back to the States, and all year long
really couldn't wait to get back to Ardmore.
"People in Ardmore would say, 'Oh isn't living in America cool: you live
in a big city, you get to be close to all these things we only see on
TV' -- but I found Ireland much more inspiring as a kid, much more fun,
and the people had such an amazing effect on me, and I credit a lot of
my growth as a child and a lot of my happiness with the people I was
surrounded by in Ireland."
With each passing sentence, she seems to remember something new,
bursting into laughter at the thought of the local amusement park --
"the summer activity" -- buying penny sweets in the shop and the
awkwardness of the town disco. I suspect that she must have been a big
hit with the teenage boys in the Ardmore disco? "No," she says
emphatically. "They thought we were the weird American girls who showed
up every summer and we didn't quite fit in. I was desperate to fit in.
Oh my God. That's all I wanted."
I suggest that perhaps she should return to the local bars to see the
men who missed their chance. She seems to like the idea. "Hello boys,
look at me now," she blasts, imagining her triumphant return.
A classic beauty, Wilde is all high cheekbones and perfectly formed
features, but there is a devilish glint in her eyes. It was her
experiences in Waterford that persuaded her to spend a summer in Dublin
at the Gaiety School of Acting where, she feels, she was able to learn
free from the "bulls**t" she would have encountered elsewhere. "I didn't
feel any notion that the purpose of this work was for fame and
recognition," she says.
"It was also important to me to maintain a connection with my Irish
roots and to spend as much time there as possible. The course I did
specialised in Irish playwrights and I've always loved Beckett, Friel
and O'Casey, and I wanted to spend time learning about these people from
people who would understand them. To learn them in America would have
been from a very different perspective."
Growing up in a family of such high-achievers and with dinner-party
guests such as
Christopher Hitchens and Mick Jagger, it might have been easy for a
child to become intimidated by the dominating personalities around every
corner, but Wilde feels it was an ideal environment to thrive.
"It was definitely free from any pressure to follow in the footsteps of
the family and join the journalism train, but we were definitely
encouraged to think big and to really believe in ourselves. I'm very
lucky to have that. When I announced that I was going to be an actress
at a young age, there was never any sense that it was a silly pipe dream.
It was more that they said, 'Great, but you're going to have to work
hard.'"
At 19, she eloped and married Ruspoli and, as the story goes, they lived
on an old yellow school bus in Venice Beach. I wonder is the reality as
magical as the tale that is told? "It's magical, but not in the way that
people imagine," she says. "They imagine the hoopla over him being
Italian and being royalty, and that would be the exciting part. In fact,
the exciting part was the sheer romanticism and spontaneity of it. We
were hippies living in Venice Beach in LA, living in a school bus, got
married in the school bus, we were happy to stay living in the school
bus. There was nothing traditional about it and there was no sense of
settling, which is the death of relationships when you move to the next
stage and see that as a settling. That's the end. We never had that. I
feel very lucky."
She had admitted that even they are a little surprised that the marriage
has lasted this long, but they remain an inseparable union (Ruspoli is
accompanying her around Europe as she promotes Tron: Legacy). "It has
been great," she says of their married life. "It's definitely an
idiosyncrasy. Not many people my age are as committed or connected to
somebody in the way that I am. It's definitely wonderful to be part of a
family that had that beautiful history of Italian aristocracy, meaning
that they can trace their family tree back so far. There's this
beautiful family tree painted on the wall in the castle. It goes back
600 years in that same house. Amazing."
I wonder how her parents felt about such an impulsive decision. "There
was definitely a sense of 'well that's Olivia', but my parents have
always been very accepting of my spirit."
Even as she discusses her marriage, the talk turns to Ardmore. "There
was this pier we used to jump off at night. I remember being with a
bunch of older kids and sprinting to the end of the pier and jumping
off, and when I came up out of the water and looking up and everyone was
gasping, because I had been inches from the concrete of the pier as I
fell. I felt so thrilled by the whole thing but a little bit nervous and
I looked up and my Dad had been watching from a cliff above.
"I realised that although I felt I was having this completely free,
independent and wild experience, my Dad was watching, making sure I was
OK. That's the spirit they've had throughout my personal life and my
career; really allowing me to be myself but always a watchful eye making
sure I'm OK. And I think that was their attitude towards my marriage as
well."
And then our time is brought to a halt. Olivia Wilde is very much a
woman in demand. Tomorrow's worldwide star who will never forget her
rural Irish past. And she also sings a mean Home and Away theme tune.
'Tron: Legacy' is showing in cinemas from Friday
- Evan Fanning
Traduction par Jujualias
Source: http://www.independent.ie