She first came to prominence as Thirteen in House, but her role as Quorra in the 2010 blockbuster Tron: Legacy firmly established her as big screen leading lady material. This summer she has two major films opening back to back: Jon Favreau's Cowboys & Aliens, which also features Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig, and The Change-Up, which is, by and large, the topic of this Q&A.
Styled after classic body swap movies like Freaky Friday, the set up for The Change-Up sees Dave, the over-stressed and over-married lawyer (Jason Bateman), and his BFF Mitch, the too happy go lucky and very single actor/stoner/whatever (Ryan Reynolds), coveting each other's lives. Wilde enters the frame as Sabrina, an associate at Dave's law firm whom the guys mutually covet, however she refused to play her as your run of the mill, caught between two men, one-dimensional love interest.
The daughter of two renowned journalists, it's perhaps instinctive that Wilde worked closely with the film's writers, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (of Hangovers 1 and 2), and director David Dobkin (Friends With Benefits and Wedding Crashers) to ensure that Sabrina jumped off the page as a fully fleshed out, post-modern woman. Though the film is somewhat flawed, it's these moments that she brought to the table such as a tattoo scene in which a gaggle of Sons of Anarchy-types gather between her well-spread thighs that are among the film's most memorable.
Here Wilde talks about why she took on Sabrina, and how she avoided the stereotypes associated with such a roll.
Question: Can you talk a little bit about being in these two very high profile films -- how these opportunities came to you, and how you feel about each of them?
Olivia Wilde: I feel very lucky to be in two such different movies in one year. It's really kind of a luxury for an actor to have an opportunity to show such different types of characters. It's really fun. I actually left Cowboys & Aliens and went straight into The Change-Up, which was kind of a funny change of pace. I remember walking around on the set of Cowboys in this Western town holding the script for The Change-Up and saying to everyone, "What do you think? I mean, this is the funniest script I've ever read in my entire life. Can I run right into another movie?" And everybody said if a script makes you laugh that hard, you can't miss the opportunity, it doesn't happen very often. I actually was supposed to do another thing, pulled out of it, and went down to Atlanta because this script was just too good to miss. And it kept getting better. I mean that was just the beginning. Then we started this awesome collaborative process of fleshing out these characters, in particular the women. I really wanted to make Sabrina, my character in The Change-Up, smarter, tougher, and funnier. The guys were very supportive of that. I found it to be a very collaborative, great environment. I had so much fun in both of these movies and now being able to show them to people is really special. I love that people don't actually understand how it's me in both of them. I think a lot of people don't realize that it's me in both movies because I look different and act different, and that's obviously the goal for an actor. So I feel very lucky.
Q: What was it about the character Sabrina that really resonated with you?
OW: Well, you know, the whole movie to me is about balance in your life. Ryan and Jason find themselves at the beginning of this movie on opposite sides of a pretty extreme spectrum. You have the responsible guy who's got the kids and a lot of pressure on his back, and you've got the guy with no pressure who's just completely irresponsible and just has nothing to do and sleeps on a futon. They're envious of each other because they're fully in those extremes. Throughout the movie they learn grass is greener, and they have these insanely outrageous experiences, and they end up learning to have a bit of both in their life -- to have a little bit of fun and responsibility. I found that Sabrina was an example of that from the beginning. I loved that she had both in her life. She was a very smart lawyer, very responsible, professional. At the same time, [she was] kind of a wild woman. And I think that balance is healthy, and it's something that I enjoy bringing to the screen because I think too often our characters are one-dimensional and they don't really have that balance. I knew they would make it funnier, because if you assume that she was this sort of more conservative lawyer [who was] on top of her game at work, you wouldn't expect her to sit down at the date and order Scotch and suggest getting a tattoo. I liked surprising the audience in that way. If she was too wild and sassy from the beginning, she's not really a surprise, it's not really satisfying. So we spent a lot of time developing her. I was so grateful that they listened to any of my ideas because I was, out of the bunch, the least experienced in this type of film. But I do love to write, and I did bring some ideas, and a few major things that I brought to the table made it into the movie. That was such a thrill for me. I learned a lot and ended up creating a character that I'm proud of.
Q: You've seen a lot of change and growth in your career, and you've seen a lot of changes too in your life professionally and personally in the past year. Are you surprised at all by the way things have turned out? How do you feel the past year has been?
OW: I've been very, very lucky. This year has been outstanding in terms of being able to have these opportunities, all different types. The fact that I was able to have this huge opportunity with House and then Tron, and then several of my smaller projects, and then given the chance to do something completely new. I mean, for The Change-Up, Dobkin hadn't seen me do anything like this, but he had sensed that I could do. So I felt really lucky to have that chance. It was a surprise and one of those opportunities that you don't see coming, and it changes your life in a certain way. The same thing happened with Cowboys & Aliens. At this point, I don't know what's going to happen next week because everything seems to change so quickly. I just can count my blessings and feel really lucky at this point, continue working really hard and learn from all the people that I'm working with. Because that's the most satisfying thing about all of this, that I've had the chance to experience these kind of master classes in acting from people like Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Jason, Ryan, Leslie, everybody, so it's been a good year.
Q: Like in the movie, have you had a time in your life where you wished you were somebody else?
OW: Of course. I think all of us have had that experience where the grass is greener and you wish that you had the other person's life. And, you know, the really amazing thing about acting is I get to experience all different kinds of lives. I mean, I now have been a doctor and a cowgirl and a computer programmer, so I get to experience all these different lifestyles. It is really a valuable part of the experience of acting, getting to develop all of these different skill sets and really throw yourself into different identities. At this point, I realize that in my own life I have won the life lottery. I am an incredibly lucky person, and I try to keep that all in perspective and remember that. So any time I start being envious of someone else's, I remember I have it pretty good myself.
Q: People are always coveting the life of a movie star -- what do you think are the drawbacks?
OW: First of all, I can never describe myself as a movie star. I don't know when that happens, but certainly not me. I think that, you know, you sign a sort of unwritten contract when you become a public figure, when you become an actor, that you're sacrificing a certain amount of privacy and parts of your life change. But the opportunity to be able to tell stories to a massive audience is really incredible, and this job couldn't be more satisfying. So any drawbacks I think are worth it if you really enjoy the work. And I hope to be doing this until I die. Hopefully that's a long time from now. Anything that becomes an obstacle in life is only an opportunity to learn. It's the same in any profession I think.
Q: As difficult as it is, I'm sure, to pretend to be attracted to Ryan Reynolds, did you feel like it was important to establish a real sort of chemistry between these two characters?
OW: No. You know, the funny thing is Sabrina is initially attracted to Dave. She likes Dave. She likes Jason Bateman's character. She loves that he's this brilliant lawyer, she loves his awkwardness, all of that is a real turn on for her and she identifies with him in certain ways. So when she meets Ryan's character, she's actually getting to have that same personality in this different shell. It feels familiar to her, and she's attracted to his personality more than his looks. When she sits down at that date, she's expecting him to be just another dude who thinks he's going to be able to date her because he's good looking, and she's very tough with him. She sends back the Chardonnay and asks for a Scotch because she just wants a drink after a long day at work. She's not expecting much from this guy, even if he's really pretty. Then he opens his mouth and he's funny and he's smart, and that's what makes Sabrina fall in love with him. And that's certainly I think the way it is for many of us women. There's a lot of pretty guys out there, but there are very few that are funny and smart enough for us.
Q: I'm just curious about working with David Dobkin. How much freedom are you given for improv for example?
OW: Gosh, it was great. Dobkin loves to push the boundaries, and he knew that we were pulling no punches on this movie. He knew that we were making this a hard R, and as far as we were willing to go was as far as he was going to push it. We would often keep the cameras rolling and just to see what happened. That's where a lot of the great moments were born. I really appreciated Dobkin's collaborative spirit. He was very open, very encouraging of me since I was kind of new to this type of film. He was very encouraging for me to go all out. I knew by watching Wedding Crashers and seeing what he had done, particularly with Isla's character, that he respected and encouraged funny women. They weren't just there to hold up the walls, which happens way too often in these comedies -- the boys are funny and the girls are there to do nothing -- and it's not the way he operates. That's the reason I wanted to do the movie [was] because I knew this was an opportunity to play in a really good environment with smart people. He was really encouraging of me in terms of making Sabrina smarter, and making her really have a purpose behind everything she did. Certainly in one of her wildest moments, she's in the midst of this kind of feminist manifesto and she's not just stripping down to entice him, it's about something much deeper. So I love Dobkin's intelligence and his respect for women. I think that's why you see these funny female characters in his movies.
Q: There's a long tradition in Hollywood of making body switch movies all the way back to Freaky Friday and other comedies in the '80s. What was it about this script in particular that you liked and that stood out from all the rest of those films?
OW: I loved how outrageous and funny it was. I loved this idea of taking a concept that the audience is familiar enough with that they understand the logic, they can accept it, and then you can have fun. It's just a launching pad for ridiculous, fun situations. I really appreciated that they were going to make a hard R body swap comedy, and that it was going to involve two fantastic actors who the audience really wants to see play in these different kind of environments. And I loved that when you do a body swap comedy, the reason it's so funny is because the stakes are always high. It's always outrageous and terrifying, and I think it's something everyone can really relate to as well. As we were speaking about before, have you ever wanted to be someone else? Well if you actually found yourself in that situation, what could you handle? What if you had to walk into a lorno [a light porno] like Ryan did. I knew that they were pushing it, it wasn't like they were just going to show a day in the life. It was really much more extreme than that. I loved that I could tell that they weren't afraid to push the boundaries. That's what I'm all about. It's very hard to shock me, and when I read the script I found myself gasping, and shocked, and really excited. I also very rarely laugh out loud at scripts and I was just howling. It was just well written, and I loved that they were taking this opportunity to take a concept people understood and blow it out of the water.
Q: You mentioned earlier that you wrote a couple of things for your character that got into the film. What were they? Also, are you looking into doing that more in the future?
OW: Well, I love the writing process. It's something that I'm interested in personally. It's something that I always do on every movie. Writers get to know me very well. It always serves me in the end because I feel I have a deeper understanding of the character, and sometimes they really like my ideas and they use them. But I don't kind of swagger in with a bunch of big structural changes and demand things. I sort of meekly suggest -- what about this, could we do that -- while understanding the structure of the film and not trying to change that.
In this movie an idea that I came to them with was the tattoo concept. That was because we were trying to think of something outrageous that could happen on the date that would be at once fun and sexy, but a little too much for Dave. Something he would wake up and think, "Oh my god!" And something that they audience would enjoy. We had all sorts of ideas. They were going to run through a graveyard, they were going to go to a rave and see Mark Wahlberg, we had all these weird ideas. We were just thinking what could it be, and I thought the great thing about a tattoo is that it creates something permanent after this wild experience is over, something that will force them to remember. I loved that they then came up with this idea of putting Jason's face on Ryan's back. That was all them. But the tattoo idea was something I brought to the table. I was so excited when they liked it. It was this amazing feeling that helped me build confidence, and it's helped me in my own writing process. I wrote a script that I'm directing this summer. It's a short film. It's a comedy, and I know I learned a tremendous amount from this experience.
Q: What Sabrina was like on the page when you originally got the script?
OW: She was already someone I really wanted to play. She was clearly smart and interesting, but she wasn't necessarily as wild as she ended up being. I think that we kept pushing it further and further in the pre-production stages as we were going through the script, saying, you know, can we make this a little funnier? Can we make this a little more intense? I really liked the idea of her really shocking the audience in a certain way. I wanted her to be unpredictable, so we all worked together to make her scenes at the office a little bit more of a misdirect. You know, she's kind of serious about her work, and she's very apt with the legal terminology, and she's clearly not the sassy secretary slinking around the office. I think it was sort of ambiguous at first what her role was in the office. I kept saying she's not Jason's secretary. They were like, "We know." I was like, "She's the associate....You have to hire another person to play the secretary so they know." They're like, "Yes, okay Olivia." So, that kind of stuff, you know, just really clarifying that she was this professional, and then having certain beats in the date to let you know that she's a pretty unique type of women.
The whole thing with the scotch was something that we added because I thought it would define her in her certain way for the audience. And then you see her start to actually have fun, and that was something that developed as we were working on the script. That she actually really falls for this guy, and it becomes a little bit more heartbreaking 'cause you realize, oh no, Sabrina, he's not real, he's not actually there. He's going to go back to his wife and when you see the real Mitch, what are you going to think?
Q: What is your idea of a good time on a date?
OW: One that ends at dawn. Yeah. I think, you know, creativity -- not being taken to a boring restaurant and a boring whatever. I think, you know, someone who thinks of something interesting -- an interesting location. I love that in the script, you know, he doesn't really know how to go on a date. He has no idea. So when they leave the restaurant and it's 2 o' clock, and she's like, "What should we do now?" The last thing he can remember from the dating world is raves, so he's like, "We can go to a rave," and she thinks he's hilarious. She thinks it's the funniest thing she's ever heard, but he's obviously serious. You just see that he has no idea how to show her a good time and so she ends up taking him on this wild experience. But, for me, yeah, it's some sort of creative idea and one that stays fun. I think one that has a sense of humor as well.
Q: Do you like to plan or do you like to be surprised?
OW: I like to be surprised, yeah, for sure.
The Change-Up opens in theaters this Friday, August 5.