- News
-
- Sport
-
- Entertainment
-
- Advice
-
- Roots
-
Make a comment
Larger Text
Print
E-mail'House star' Olivia Wilde talks fame, 'Fix' and her Irish pride
Olivia Wilde steps onto the red carpet at the Tribeca Grand Hotel and the flashbulbs explode. She’s in town for the premiere of her latest film “Fix” (which opens on Friday) and banks and banks of press photographers are vying for a perfect shot. “Look to the left, Olivia! Look to the right!” they shout, as cameras focus and refocus.
Asked what she makes of all the heady attention, the 25-year-old shrugs playfully. “It’s a circus. All filmmaking is like a circus from start to finish. Some part of me really enjoys it,” she told IrishCentral’s sister publication the Irish Voice during an interview last week.
But Wilde has a particularly Irish combination of beauty and brains, so it’s fairly safe to assume she’ll never be seduced by the empty glamour of fame that seems to consume so many of her contemporaries.
In the midst of the big media scrum she’s as cool as ice, relaxed and focused and doing what she came to do -- promote her new film. Other people are losing their heads all around her -- behind the velvet ropes male photographers are shouting at her like naughty schoolboys, press agents are jumping in and out of her way -- but she keeps her composure, never once frowning or making a face. She’s that rare thing in Hollywood, a class act, and a throwback to the golden age of movie stars who stayed unruffled and ready no matter where or when.
“Fix,” written and directed by her documentary filmmaking husband Tao Ruspoli, is a breakneck thrill ride of a movie. In this fictionalized version of a factual tale, Wilde plays Bella, a young documentary maker who together with her boyfriend Milo (played by Ruspoli) has to race across town in order to get Milo’s brother Leo (Shawn Andrews) from jail to a rehab clinic before 8 p.m. on the same day -- or Leo goes to jail for three years.
It’s a story inspired by true events, and the trio journey from a police station in the middle of nowhere in California all the way through the mansions of Beverly Hills in a desperate attempt to raise the $5,000 they need to get Leo into the rehab clinic.
For Wilde and Ruspoli it wasn’t the big budget Hollywood thrillers that inspired them. Rather, it was a made for peanuts Irish film that gave them the courage to write, direct and star in it themselves.
It also helped that Wilde is now a household name here thanks to her recurring role opposite Golden Globe winning actor Hugh Laurie in Fox’s hit show “House.” All the exposure has made it easier to raise the budget for their cinematic labor of love.
Related Items
- The secrets of Brendan Gleeson's success...
- The worst Irish accents in Hollywood movies...
- Top 10 Irish songs for Saint Patrick's Day...
- 'American Idol' Siobhan Magnus sparks revival...
- 10 Irish songs to avoid this Saint Patrick’s...
- Kathy Griffin to Conan O’Brien: I’m pregnant...
- Conan O'Brien in talks about making upcoming...
- Five great Irish drinking songs for St. Patrick's...
- Roisin Murphy: Lady Gaga stole my look!...
- Ever-green 'Good Day New York' host Greg...
