becoming a somebody
Olivia Thirlby just celebrated her 26th birthday, but you won’t see pictures of her boozing it up on the gossip pages.
“I’m such a homebody,” says the New York City native. “I don’t party. I don’t drink. That may be because I got it out all out of my system before I was 18.” She grew up fast in the East Village and attended Friends Seminary with “Girls” creator Lena Dunham, who also co-wrote Thirlby’s new film, “Nobody Walks.” The movie opens Friday. Thirlby stars as Martine, an artist who moves in with an L.A. couple (John Krasinski and Rosemarie DeWitt) and unwittingly blows their world apart.
“Martine’s mistake is a lack of experience and a lack of understanding what marriage and family is,” says Thirlby of her character, who casually sleeps with Krasinski’s character. “Her sexuality is a big part of who she is. And there’s something about her that makes people turn their heads and look.”
Thirlby’s got that same quality. “When you’re around Olivia, she has that infectiousness where you’re like, ‘I would follow you to a rave somewhere,’” says “Nobody Walks” director Ry Russo-Young.
“I don’t mean like Megan Fox hot,” Russo-Young says. “But she has that thing about her that makes people want to watch her and touch her and try to understand her.”
Deciphering the film’s title isn’t so difficult, the star says.
“It’s a giant metaphor,” says Thirlby. “As they say, nobody walks in L.A., and Martine shows up and there’s a long sequence of her walking. She does things you’re not supposed to do.”
The actress first captured moviegoers’ attention as Leah, Ellen Page’s wisecracking pal, in 2007’s indie hit “Juno.”
“It’s certainly the most recognizable thing I’ve done,“Thirlby says. “It’s been so many years now, but it’s still very much around.”
Recently, she’s gone mainstream, with leading roles in a pair of 3-D action movies. “‘The Darkest Hour’ was a lot of running away and looking scared,” she jokes of last year’s alien-attack, blink-and-you-missed-it flick. “Luckily, ‘Dredd’ was slightly more dynamic.” In that sci-fireboot this summer, Thirlby played a rookie cop in a dystopian
urban wasteland. “The physical stuff was a bit of a stretch for me,” she admits. “I mean, I like to exercise, do yoga and hike. But the weapons training and fighting — that was new for me, but it was really fun.”
Thirlby’s first major film was the 2006 docudrama “United 93,” directed by Paul Greengrass. It’s a project she initially turned down. “I told my manager, ‘I was in New York City on Sept. 11. I’ll never make a movie about that. I find it to be distasteful,’ ” she recalls.
But she changed her mind. “When I saw the kind of film Paul Greengrass was making, I thought it was a really beautiful, important thing to be part of,” Thirlby explains.
She has since worked with acting legends like Ben Kingsley (“The Wackness”) and Robert De Niro (“Being Flynn”). “It’s an indescribable feeling to share a screen with people whose faces you’ve grown up watching,” she says. “You show up, try not to make an ass out of yourself, keep your mouth shut and observe as much as you possibly can.”
Those are wise words coming from a 26-year-old, but Thirlby learned a lot as a youngster in Manhattan.
“There’s very little you’re not exposed to in New York City, in terms of ideas and physical things — sights, sounds, smells, different kinds of people,” she says. “But one good thing about growing up fast is you get over it fast, too.”