I love Olivia Wilde.
Sure, I wasn't hugely impressed the first time I saw her act, playing a girl with very plucked eyebrows who got off with Marissa Cooper n The O.C. But over the years Wilde has showed herself to be not just a witty and likeable actor, but a fiercely smart, feminist and funny writer and activist (which shouldn't really be surprising, given her family background – she's the daughter, granddaughter, niece and cousin of several distinguished political writers and journalists).
Basically, she is cool.
And the interview in the September issue of the U.S. edition of Glamour makes me love her even more.
In the interview (only part of which is online - I've read the entire thing because I have a subscription), Wilde shows herself to be funny and astute. I particularly liked these comments on women in the media, and on the times she posed for men's magazines in the past:
When I speak at panels, I sometimes get asked about women’s roles in the media and how we’re perceived. Someone will always call me out, like, “But you posed on the cover of GQ in a bikini. So how can you seem to understand why that hinders us as a sex?” Well, wait a minute. I can speak with authority about the state of women in the media because I am part of the machine itself. And also I’m allowed to evolve and grow up.
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But this wasn't what made the interview widely discussed online. Wilde's magazine spread also features a sweet photo of the actress breastfeeding her baby son Otis in a diner, wearing a Roberto Cavalli dress (as you do). Cue dozens of supposedly scandalised articles and a rather snide round table discussion in The Cut.
Wilde was accused, bizarrely, of "glamorizing" breastfeeding and not showing the more stretch-marky, leaky and less photoshopped reality - but I thought those jibes were just petty. As Wilde herself said,
That picture grew out of a very organic moment. I was working, I was shooting the cover of Glamour, and I needed to feed my son, Otis. And so he came to work, and I had to feed him. And either I was going to do it off-camera or on, and I thought, You know what—shoot it, because this is part of my real life...Usually he has a diaper on and I've never looked that good breast-feeding, and I never will.
I also like that in the Glamour interview itself, Wilde adds "We should mention that Otis peed all over that dress."
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So what do you think of the shoot? Is it tacky or charming? And would you ever dare feed a baby, nappy-free or otherwise, while wearing such a glamorous gown?
(main image courtesy of Glamour US)
