Indie actress Olivia Thirlby

You've probably seen Olivia Thirlby around. You probably saw her in Juno, where she plays the titular character's best friend; maybe you also saw her in the recently released film What Goes Up, in which (to her delight) she worked with Josh Peck for the second time. Maybe you've seen her in one of the myriad other indie films in which she's been. You probably left the theatre wondering, "Who's that girl?" There's definitely something special about Olivia Thirlby. Maybe it's the fact that, unlike so many of her contemporaries, she actually has talent. Maybe it's the Brooklyn-NYC cool that radiates off her... to which, you know, I can relate, being a fellow resident of Brooklyn. In any event, she's definitely one of the most exciting young actors around, which becomes increasingly blatant over the course of this very interview. Enjoy.

Hey, Olivia?
Hey, how are you?

I’m good, how are you?
I am good, thanks.

Are you in L.A. right now, or—
Look at this weather. No, I’m in New York! You’re in New York too, right?

Yeah, I live in Brooklyn.
Me too. What’s up with this mist? I’ve been walking around in this shit all day. [laughs]

Yeah. Like two days ago it was ninety degrees and now it’s like fifty… I don’t know what happened.
Why me? [laughs]

There are tons of things I want to get to but let’s start with New York I Love You. Tell me about the segment you’re in.
Um… I’m in the segment that was directed by Brett Ratner, and it stars myself and Anton Yelchin and also James Caan—and I actually don’t really want to talk about what it’s about, because it’s only five minutes long and I don’t want to give it away. [laughs]

Okay, fair enough. What part of the city is it?
It takes place on the Upper West Side and in Central Park.

Excellent. Yeah, I know they did Paris, Je T’aime according to district, so I at least wanted to know that. By the way, how was it working with Anton?
Oh, yeah, he’s the sweetest. He’s a really, really nice, sweet guy and we had a total blast working together. I’ve truly fallen in love with him. I think he’s a really talented actor, too.

Yeah, he’s great. And right now he’s so busy with Star Trek and Terminator.
Yeah! I haven’t even seen Star Trek yet, actually, but I’ve heard it’s good.

It’s so good. You have to see it.
I’ve actually started working with Chris Pine right now, so I believe I’ll have to give it a good look!

Right, you're in the play Farragut North! I want to talk about that, definitely, but first I have another couple of questions about New York I Love You. How did you get involved?
I knew about the project already—I’d been contacted by my agent and manager—and then I read the script that was Brett’s and I agreed to do it. It’s pretty much the same topic as the other one.

Well, I figured that that might be the case, but you seem to do a lot of New York projects—which is pretty cool, but I was wondering whether or not it’s intentional.
You know, I think it’s just proximity. [laughs] It’s just happened that way, I guess. I mean, maybe I’m drawn to New York movies, or casting directors tend to think I’m right for New York movies because I’m from New York, but I don’t really know! It’s a coincidence.

Now I’d love to talk about Farragut North. In November the play was off-Broadway—
Yeah, it was at the Atlantic.

And John Gallagher Jr. was in the role Chris Pine is now playing in L.A. How did you—this play is basically your theatrical debut, so how did you decide to do this particular play?
Well, it was my first professional theatre gig, the first job that I had in theatre, but I come from theatre. I grew up doing all sorts of theatre all the time in school and I went to all these theatre summer camps, so that’s my true love, live acting for the stage. And I actually said to my manager, “At some point I really need to do a play because I’m scared if I don’t exercise these muscles they’re just going to atrophy. I’m going to live on the street because I’m not going to be able to do a play!” And the next thing that came around was Farragut North, which was something I had already been familiar with because it existed as a screenplay. And it was just an audition, just like any other. I’ve been to other theatre auditions where I haven’t gotten the part, so it was an audition just like any other and I guess it went kind of well.

[laughs]
I ended up getting the part, and then after that it was unstoppable.

You keep a lot of street cred for having your “theatrical debut” off-Broadway instead of on a big trumped-up flashy Broadway show, though.
I wouldn’t have gotten the part. [laughs]

Well, it’s just that it happens so much on Broadway—you see people known for film that suddenly decide to do something flashy and trumped-up, and it’s like the play’s irrelevant; it’s all about them, which is really frustrating.
Well, good, I’m glad you think so!

I’m really upset—I almost saw your play in November but in the end I couldn’t!
Well, if you find yourself in L.A. in July, there’s always then. But… you know. [laughs] Maybe after we do our little run here, we’ll come to Broadway. I think the whole cast would really love that. We wanted a Broadway run. We wanted to be transferred; we wanted our run to continue when we ended in November. So this is sort of like the half-fulfillment of our original wish. So maybe we’ll come back again and do it in New York… hopefully! That would be great.

I could definitely see that happening. One the one hand, you’ll have had an established run with good reviews in both New York and L.A., but there are names that would be recognizable to the ticket-buying public. So I think it’s very possible.
Yeah. I hope so! I don’t know, fingers crossed. Do you see any wood? I don’t see any wood because I’m on the street, but if you see any knock on it for me! [laughs]

Y’know, I’m just trying to imagine how you possib—you seem so busy. You have like fifty projects coming up.
Yeah… you know, these films are a lot of indie films where it takes a couple years after you make them for them to actually come to light, so it’s stuff that I’ve been working on over the past couple years and they’re posted on IMDb but they haven’t really… nothing official’s happening to them yet. You know, it’s just a collection of small films here and there. Stuff that I did with friends. The only actual film about to go out that I have is called The Answer Man, and that’s a really great film. I saw it at Sundance and I loved it and I just wanted to see it again and I just think it’s a great film. Good for the whole family, except for the little kids because there’s some language in it, but it’s good for all audiences.

Was that originally under another title? Was that originally under Arlen Faber?
Yeah.

I saw that around under its old title. That’s coming out later this year, right?
Yeah. It’s coming out—I don’t know when it’s coming out, actually! [her publicist taps in to say that it comes out July 24th] Oh, okay. Thanks! [laughs]

All right, July 24th. What’s it about?
It’s hard to explain in detail the basic gist of the plot, but it’s about love. It’s about love and trying to make sense of life and what it is what we’re all doing here. It has a beautiful message, but it never gets corny or overwrought or heavy, which I think is what’s really special about the tone of the film.

I can hear the street noise around you in the background. I’m like, “Yeah, that sounds like Manhattan to me.”
Can you really? I’m sitting on a fire hydrant. [laughs]

That’s great! I don’t think anybody’s ever said that to me over the phone.
[laughs] Yeah, I’m on the street.

Whereabouts are you?
I’m on 4th Avenue and 12th Street. I’m in front of a masquerade shop, because I’m killing time. When I’m done with this I’m going to go into the shop, because I want to buy a mask, so I’ve been sitting out here for the last forty-five minutes, just sitting on the phone on the fire hydrant. [laughs]

You’re postponing the inevitable by doing this interview.
Yeah. [laughs] Pretty much.

What’s with masquerades? In the last week I’ve had scads of people be like, “Oh, I’m going to a masquerade party next month.”
Well, it’s not a coincidence, I’m sure.

I bet there’s a gigantic masquerade conspiracy that’s just now surfacing.
[laughs] Sure.

Let’s talk about What Goes Up now, which is the second film you’ve done with Josh Peck.
Yeah! Yeah, we filmed this right after we filmed The Wackness, and it couldn’t have been more different of an environment. It was really fun! It was fun to show up and already have a buddy. [laughs] And we found out that The Wackness had gotten into Sundance while we were filming this one in Vancouver, so we had a little celebration.

Oh, that’s exciting!
And it was nice. Yeah, it’s really cool!

At the press day for The Wackness, Josh Peck mentioned that you two had gotten the offer to costar in another movie, as twins, which you understandably turned down.
Yeah. [laughs] Actually, we did consider it briefly. We were definitely not averse to working together again, in whatever relationship incarnation, but the financing for the movie sort of fell apart and it didn’t end up working out. But I think we would have done it! I think we would have. After playing lovers and then playing enemies, I think it would be very fitting if we had ended up playing siblings. [laughs]

I think any moviegoers that saw either of your other films together would have been squicked out by that, frankly.
Yeah, maybe you're right. [laughs]

Speaking of projects that fall apart or go on hiatus or have complications, is Parts per Billion still a project? I know you were attached to that for a while.
Yeah, it’s still around… basically, we couldn’t get the money. The finance world is really, really bad right now, and we had a window of time that everyone was available, and unfortunately we couldn’t get the money soon enough. And the writer/director actually just had a baby. So I think there’s been a lot of stuff for us to be on a little bit of a hold, but I’m really passionate about this project and so is everyone else involved and I’m sure—positive, in fact—that it will get made one day.

I was hearing a lot about this project and it looked really promising, but then Robert Pattinson had to pull out because of New Moon and it seemed to just kind of slip away.
Yeah. Well, that’s part of making movies: it’s not official until it happens, pretty much. Things are constantly changing, people and things are always subject to change, and there are just so many stars that have to align for everyone to show up on Day 1 on the set ready to shoot, and there’s just so much that has to happen before that. It can be really tricky to get it all together.

Right. You also are in an HBO TV pilot called Bored to Death, I’ve heard.
Yeah. It’s been great. I was actually just on the set, and I just love being on the show. I’m delighted by everything and I keep pushing myself and I love being with all these guys, and the show is fantastic and I’m really glad to be a part of it.

It was through one of the directors, Michael Lehmann, that I actually found out you were going to be on the show. I was like, “Wow!”
Yeah. I actually wasn’t in any of his episodes, though.

What’s it about?
Well, it’s kind of hard to explain the premise. I don’t think that there’s that much of a driving plot.

[laughs]
But I would basically say that Jason’s the main character and I play his ex-girlfriend. The series begins with me leaving him and moving out, and then I show up every couple of episodes to have an awkward encounter or to break his heart a little bit or do whatever it is that I do.

When you started by saying you were his ex-girlfriend, my mind went to Burn Notice.
[laughs] I’ve actually never seen that show.

You should. It’s very good. What TV do you watch?
I just got really into Rescue Me. That show is amazing. And then I’m addicted to the Daily Show. I watch every day. Um… that’s pretty much the only TV I watch consistently. I do have a few guilty pleasures when it comes to reality shows: I kind of love What Not To Wear. [laughs]

God only knows why, but I used to love that TLC show Ten Years Younger. I’d set the TV up to record episodes in the middle of the day and then I’d come home and watch them after school. This was back when I didn’t have any homework.
I hear ya, I hear ya. My life in high school was the same: I had far too much homework to ever consider doing anything fun. Other than acting!

Well, it was fine until this year, junior year, when… boom! Junior year is not a fun year.
Yeah, it’s really not. But it’ll pass. It must be almost over, though!

Yeah, it just ended, which makes me happy.
Well, congratulations! [laughs] I hope you have a good summer.

Yes, thank you! And you too.
[laughs]

Olivia Thirlby's film The Answer Man comes out July 24th, as you may have already gathered; her other film New York I Love You is released on October 16th; and her play Farragut North is playing at the Geffen Playhouse until July 26th.