Olivia Wilde covers the May issue of Lucky mag. My first thought was that she was promoting her pregancy. I’m kidding. Olivia is promoting The Third Person, which is a relationship drama where she romances Liam Neeson. Of course! His movie girlfriends get younger and younger, but that’s how it works for most leading men. That’s just a fact of Hollywood life.
Olivia is a strange celebrity to cover from a gossip standpoint. For awhile, she and Jason Sudeikis were messing with us with a bunch of sex talk. That was irritating. Then Olivia dropped that act and launched an assault on plastic surgery. She also has thoughts on women in Hollywood and seems painfully aware of her own place in the machine. I dig her now, and her pregnancy style has been second to none this year. Let’s do some excerpts:
On turning 30: “Your twenties are about hustling: getting into the workforce, making a name for yourself, supporting yourself, learning as much as possible. It feels like this wonderful plateau, a vantage point where you can look and say, okay, now that I’ve seen all this stuff, I know which way I’d actually like to continue and what really isn’t true to me. That’s what’s happened over the last two or three years.”
Her teenage style: “At 13 years old, I was wearing a lot of corduroy suits with wide-collared polyester shirts. My nickname at that age was ‘thrifty girl,’ which I think of now and is so weird. But at the time, I couldn’t imagine paying more than $20 for a pair of jeans.”
Her current style: “My style is never uncomfortable … it’s part of my nature to look a little messy. When in doubt, look to the French. For literally everything in life. It’s just minimalism at its best.” After seeing girls in Paris wearing vintage tees tucked into pencil skirts a few years back, she says she thought she had solved the what-to-wear conundrum forever. “I remember thinking, I’m going to go home and buy a bunch of pencil skirts so I can do that. The same thing happened with suspenders. I saw someone in suspenders and I thought, Yes! Suspenders are everything!”
Her pregnancy style: “I just thought, Oh I’m going to hide this forever. But I ended up getting kind of excited to show the bump, as a badge of pride. Like,”–here she affects an Oprah-like bellow–“I’m a woman! Look at me making a human! I am a goddess! I’m like, double D, hello! I’ve never been in this section of the bra store! I’ve been flat-chested my whole life, so it’s a wonderful new world.”
Her unborn son: “He’s moving around in there and no one else can tell–it’s a little secret friendship.”
She’s so chill now: “Pregnancy does shed away all of the bullsh-t. It gives you more empathy because you look at everyone and you think, You were a baby! Pregnancy brings you into this sort of commune–you feel connected to women in a way that you never have.”
When will she and Jason marry? “It’s certainly not something I feel pressured to do before we have the baby. I’m such a believer in marriage and I think of him as my husband anyway. I get that it’s not peaches and cream every day.”
Her vintage engagement ring: “All they know is that it went through Paris around 1921. I love imagining the story of this ring. Who had it? It’s a bit of an aqua emerald, not a deep dark green. Jason said it reminded him of my eyes, which is very sweet.”
She’s no femme fatale: “Playing the ideal girl is much harder for me than the basket-case mess. Now when I look at roles, if it says, ‘In walks in the femme fatale, the epitome of perfection and desire,’ I say, ‘No, that’s not going to work.’ I’m not interested unless she turns out to be psychotic and murders everyone in the room. I’d rather be Ursula than the Little Mermaid.”
[From Lucky Mag]
You know, I’m sure there are some readers out there who also felt like a “goddess” during pregnancy. I did not. I was like, “Let’s get this sh-t over with.” I was tired of feeling huge and having aching hips and wanted to meet the kiddo. No “secret friendships” occurred until after she came out, and then it was true love. The goddess thing seems kind of silly, but maybe some of you can explain it to me.
This Lucky shoot was probably shot a few months ago. Olivia hadn’t yet hit the third trimester, but she was styled in loose sweaters to cover up the burgeoning bump. I’ve included some of Livvy’s recent street style photos too. The “bumblebee” sweater is not a good look.
Photos courtesy of Lucky Mag, Fame/Flynet & WENN
This interview makes me less annoyed by her.
Much to my chagrin, I agree with you.
This made me chuckle actually:
“I’m not interested unless she turns out to be psychotic and murders everyone in the room.”
Even though I think this is just another example of a beautiful actress wanting to get a meatier role that plays against type, I still like the way she expressed herself better than say, an Alba or a Biel, who bemoan the trappings of beauty ad nauseam.
Anyway, I’m sure my amicable feelings won’t last long-she’s bound to say something stupid again soon.
Goddess is a weird descriptor but there is an aw effect. It’s an odd effect but I did sometimes feel kind of wacky cool knowing an entire human being was inside of me-with all the parts. I guess it’s hard to articulate but still, goddess? No. And at the end, it might as well have been a rhinoceros and it needed to GTFO.
Yes, I get what you’re saying. When you’re pregnant you are carrying not only your child but your grandchild via an egg or sperm. Isn’t that wild to consider?
I get what you mean.
But I still hated pregnancy. I just wanted to be done. I didn’t feel empowered, I didn’t feel like a goddess
I felt huge and uncomfortable and scared. I’m never going through it again
I love our daughter more than anything else. She was worth it. But ughhhh
When Olivia and Jason were photographed before she got pregnant…they always looked so happy….since the pregnancy, jason, especially, does not look very thrilled…I seriously don’t see this relationship getting to the marriage stage…
They are still smiling, still holding hands. They’re alright in my opinion. .
I am so over seeing pregnant celebrities everywhere. Sick of pregnancy being the new it thing in the media. Sick of it. You’d think they invented the damned thing in the 2000s the way it’s exploded as the most important cover feature in the media.
Women’s lives seem to revolve around when they will get pregnant or when they were pregnant the last time.
Another reason to envy men. They’ll never be put on a pedestal for having sex and being an expectant daddy suddenly. Nor will they discuss the expectancy of their child. Nor will they be judged for their appearance before or after their child. Nor will they be judged for not being a father by a certain age.
God!!
I was just going to write something similar. It’s like only when a woman gets pregnant does she feel like a *real* woman. And what if you choose not to reproduce? I’m sick of allll of this.
Or what, for whatever reason, you cannot reproduce or shouldn’t for your own health reasons?
If you choose not to reproduce, you are of course a selfish biatch, and your whole purpose to being born has been forfeit. How dare you deny nature the purpose of your creation?! Go home and rethink your life choices little lady!
@Kelly, exactly!
No, men get put on a pedestal for doing things they should be doing anyway. Such as taking an active parental role with their children or household chores.
True. It’s a hop, skip and a jump away from a new joy about to arrive in your life and ‘pregnant women are smug.’
I still can’t stand her or Jason. I think she is a horrible human being for the way she treated her Ex! She has no class.
Over the next few years, I expect their relationship to follow the trajectory of Jon Hamm’s character and his wife in “Friends With Kids”.. Hot and heavy courtship give way to the less sexy reality of raising a baby. The intense part is what defined them as a couple and resentment brews as the guy misses the past too much..
I think her ambivalence about marriage is coming more from Jason’s side. She’s repeating his talking points.. 50/50 odds they ever make it down the aisle.
They reportedly wanted to marry this spring before the pregnancy. I have the feeling they’ll still do it, my bet is around the summer,
She seems happy and excited, congrats to them.
But I’m amazed that she still manages to turn these small parts in ensemble films into magazine covers.
Third Person will come out in June 20 – which is almost 2 months away. I don’t think she get this cover because of that. I think the pregnancy, turned30 and her company (Conscious Commerce) has to more with it, then the movie (by the way, she has a quite big part in that film).
You’re not a goddess. You’re not the earth mother. You’re not a sacred vessel.
You just got pregnant.
I don’t care about your bump, your morning sickness or even how you got the little human out of your repro box.
But if you want to talk about the kindness, intelligence, devotion, empathy, humor and insight it takes to raise a child in such a selfish world I will halfway listen and slow clap if you are ready for the hard work involved once the pap’d baby shower is over.
Every woman who carries a pregnancy is a goddess. It’s a miracle, what we women can do. As for the rest of your expectations, let her give birth to the child first, ‘k?
I loved how my fertility gynecologist described it , women have the virtue of the soil (ground???), they are fertile, they produce life.
I’m sorry , it sounds more poetic in my language.
I could not have children even when I tried, and it is amazing, truly I would have felt like a goddess, a crappy goddess at that, probably farty and swollen, but it is not meant for some of us.
I also cringe at some of the mothers and fathers out there, but oh well.
I tend to agree. The instructor in my childbirth class said the same thing. Maybe I’m a jaded biotch, but I just said “How is it miraculous? If a human giving birth is a goddess, then so are the cats, dogs, and singl-cell protoplasms. Giving birth isn’t inherently cool, or miraculous and special. It’s fulfilling your biological imperative. It’s doing, in reality, a really mundane thing.” They looked at me like I had 3 heads. I felt so out of place for 9 months because I didn’t “glow” or talk about how miraculous or beautiful it was. Because I just didn’t feel it. And I realized quick how radical that really is.
What a bitter thing to think. Unlike you, I still see pregnancy as a beautiful process, whether the pregnancy is easy to handle or not, whether dogs and cats and fish can procreate on the flip side. Let Olivia live and bask in it. It’s her first pregnancy, for crying out loud. She’s new to everything.
If some of you get past your momshock you will notice that I did not say that birth and life are not miraculous. Be it human or animal I find it the most spectacular process imaginable. But getting preggo and delivering do not make you a goddess. A pregnant woman can be a loving, glowing madonna, a passive, disinterested type or a mean, rude biotch and guess what? Basically the baby will happen. So either every woman is a goddess for being born a woman or no woman is a goddess. And if it takes getting knocked up to realize you are special then that is a separate issue. I am tired of genuflecting because somebody’s uterus is doing one of the things it was designed for. And I love babies, lol. Now raise a child to be a fulfilled, actualized, caring individual and you have my admiration – male or female.
I totally get the goddess thing. Look at me, I have the power to gestate LIFE!
Maybe I’m in a class of my own here, but I hated being pregnant. I didn’t feel empowered, I didn’t enjoy it. I was uncomfortable and wanted my body back. I love my kids and am so greatful to have had them. But the nine months of them cooking in my body was no fun.
Pregnancy did not take well to my body. I was soooo massive and it was during a hot Aussie summer so my feet, ankles and even my knees swelled up. To top it off I had a rare pregnancy rash called PUPPS and my partner would find me in the lounge room at 1 in the morning scratching away with a hair brush. It is an amazing thing but I looked and felt far from amazing
I love my babies. They (twins) are a week old today, but I don’t feel particularly Special Snowflaky about having them. I just feel lucky. We wanted a baby for so long, and now we’re happier than probably anyone should be. I just don’t get the whole “goddess” thing. A crazy person who wants her Tylenol T3, maybe. But the fact of the matter is, a lot of it is out of our hands. You have PCOS or you don’t. You have endometriosis or you don’t. It doesn’t make you “powerful” any more than not having psoriasis makes you powerful.
Congrats on the twins. I just had my third (and final) on St. Patty’s day. I have PCOS and just developed hypothyroidism, so all of my pregnancies were hard won (and required “help”). As miserable as I was this time around I was still greatful for the chance to carry a child once again.
Eh, I had the experience of being both Goddess and Totally Irritated About the Whole Thing. At first I was really excited- I couldn’t wait for my belly to stick out real good. I felt awesome for cooking a whole human being- I can’t even make lasagne, so I felt really accomplished so even though I knew it wasn’t THAT big a deal, IT WAS A BIG DAMN DEAL. Then reality set in- I was a sweaty, red, raging, miserable mofo from the end of my first trimester until about 3 months after I had my baby. Everything hurt, my boobs were huge (if by “boobs” you mean only ONE boob that had grown so large it was like three regular boobs), my hair was… bad, I got pregnoid acne, I had cankles to be damned, and I never really had a handle on just how friggin behemoth I was. I’d get stuck in places I would never have gotten stuck before I was pregnant, and I was shocked every damn time I got wedged in somewhere.
But hey, good for her. Whatever- I’m not bitter.
7 months pregnant now. I WISH I felt like a goddess. More like a cow that can barely breathe. Seeing how gorgeous she looks pregnant just makes me angry.
I never felt like a goddess…but, I loved being pregnant…never felt better in my life! And, I do remember being in absolute awe, that a tiny little human was inside me…
” The goddess thing seems kind of silly, but maybe some of you can explain it to me.”
I think she is just exited. It’s her first time being pregnant,so she’s excited! She’s not being snobby, she’s being excited. Nothing more, nothing less. I think.
I always found her annoying, and then I watched “Butter.” And now she seems far less annoying.
No the goddess thing, well she isn’t the first to have one and won’t be the last to have a baby. I was with Kaiser, get it out and get it out N O W.
I like her and I think she is pretty honest and pretty funny. And I sort of liked the interview, and when in doubt look to the French!
Sorry am I the only one that had no clue she is still in her twenties! I thought she was in her mid-late 30’s! Like 37ish. NO dig on her I just always thought she was older, does anyone else think she looks way more mature than 29?
She turned 30 on March 10th.
And yes she looks more mature then her age (some -who knows or worked with her- say she is more mature as a person as well). I remember when Amber Tamblyn was on House, she played a medical student, and looked younger then Olivia, when in real life she is older the Ms. Wilde).
All I have to add to this thread, is after seeing Olivia on E! news last night (about this interview), my husbands comment about her was “I think she’s so average looking actually”. Have to say I agree with him, I have never gotten her appeal. At all.
I think she was being sort of tongue in cheek when she mentioned the whole Goddess thing. The writer indicated that she took on an affected tone when she made the statement. She didn’t say being pregnant made her a “real” woman or anything offensive like that.
I will say, though, that there’s a mythology that pregnancy and motherhood makes all women better people, more connected to other women, etc. Maybe that’s true in some cases but it’s definitely not the truth for everyone. Being pregnant just means you got knocked up and your reproductive system is working properly-it doesn’t mean that you are special or that you are some kind of a Goddess. I can see why women who struggle with infertility could be hurt by those sorts of statements (I think Olivia was just being silly, though).
I totally agree. She was making fun of herself.
I guess everything is extraordinary when they happen to you, but one has to have perspective, because pregnancy IS one of the the most commonplace experiences in human life, biologically speaking. I don’t think that acknowledging it connotes disdain. What does lead to acrimony between women who have kids and women who do not is that pregnancy is treated as a level up with bonus points. Same for marriage and even dating. I think there’s a difference between pregnancy having a positive effect on you because you’re a parent and it having that effect because you’re a woman. The latter suggests that you haven’t reached the higher plane and you have forfeited your deepest purpose, so you need to be reminded of that because you’re missing out on something great. I don’t think that that attitude completely stems from malice because a lot of women have fallen into awe over the profundity of their own experiences of motherhood and want other women to be able to participate in that kind of experience. Problem is, sometimes that can lead to the assumption that women who don’t participate can be thought to have only have a shallow relationship with the human experience, and don’t have the growth trajectory that women with children have because the haven’t had to deal with the challenges and amenities that come from from it. So they live their shallow lives with shallow occupations and the female equivalent of ‘first world problems’. They’re kind of static. Everyone changes and grows throughout life and no one wants to end up like the kind of people on STFU, Parents. No one is a goddess, no one is a brood mare–outside of Quiverfull, but people do or don’t give birth every damn day of the year so whoever you are, it doesn’t matter.