OLIVIA WILDE IN “THIRD PERSON”

Modern-day renaissance actress Olivia Wilde, who effortlessly transitions from sharing the screen with renowned actors to working alongside devoted doctors and teachers in Haitian refugee camps stars in the upcoming romantic thriller “Third Person” opposite Liam Neeson.

 Scripted and helmed by Academy Award Winner Paul Haggis (“Crash”), “Third Person” is set in Paris, New York and Rome that follows three intersecting stories of love and relationships in crises.  Michael (Liam Neeson) is a Pulitzer Prize winning author who has holed himself up in a hotel suite in Paris to finish his latest book.  He recently left his wife, Elaine (Kim Basinger), and is having an affair with an ambitious young writer, Anna (Olivia Wilde) who has her own agenda.

Wilde’s character Anna is young, beautiful and damaged.  An aspiring New York writer but currently working as a gossip reporter at a fashion magazine, she is protege to Michael, a successful novelist who is also her mentor and charismatic lover.  Anna enjoys the thrill of taunting Michael and using her youth and beauty to toy with him and her arrival in Paris brings much-needed inspiration and excitement to him.    Although she is damaged and complicated, her love for Michael is very real.

“They’ve known each other for some time and as is revealed they’ve been carrying on this relationship. Things are kind of coming to a head and she has a lot of her own personal issues that we learn a bit about, but ultimately she’s in love with Michael and has a kind of obsession with him at the same time as a real romantic love for him,” Wilde explains of her character.   “It’s interesting playing Anna but I don’t know if I’d say I’m enjoying playing her because I wouldn’t want to ‘be’ Anna.  The experience has been a real case of  ‘There but for the grace of God go I.   I’m playing an incredibly damaged and painful role, but it’s really interesting to play. It’s not one of those fun roles where you think like ‘yeah I can’t wait to get to work and… sob today!’’ 

Moreso, Wilde says that “The characters are all so complex and that really appealed to me.   I found parallels   between   their  struggles   really   interesting   and   I   found   myself empathizing with everyone because everyone’s damaged here - men, women and children but they’re all ultimately driven by love.   I think the mark of a great writer is when you can empathize with all of their characters, even though they tend to hurt each other”. Third Person is much more than just a drama.    It’s a thriller and a mystery where these three stories begin to intertwine”.   And (director) Paul Haggis is wonderful to work for.    He’s so personally attached to the material  and  he has  such  great  understanding of  the  characters that  he’s helpful at all points. There is no question he can’t answer with real sensitivity. And  as a director he’s fantastic. He and I have a great shorthand, friendship and mutual respect now we’ve worked together three times”.

“Liam is incredible and so perfect for the role of Michael. He has such a gentle spirit as well as a real solid strength. I think that’s part of who he is - a really sensitive person. I think it’s absolutely imperative the audience empathize with Michael’s character, despite what can be seen as the cruel moves he’s making towards his wife and towards Anna.    Despite that we find ourselves following him, loving him and forgiving him. And I don’t think any other actor could make that work. It takes someone with Liam’s sensitive spirit,” Wilde says of working with Liam Neeson.

Rated R16 by the MTRCB, “Third Person” opens on June 18 nationwide (ahead of U.S. release) from Axinite Digicinema.

The dark side of Olivia Wilde in ‘Deadfall’

Olivia Wilde is a modern-day Renaissance woman. As an actress and an activist, she effortlessly transitions between sharing the screen with renowned actors in critically acclaimed films and television shows and working alongside devoted doctors and teachers in Haitian refugee camps.

Photo courtesy of Crystalsky Multimedia

In her most recent film, Deadfall, she and Eric Bana play siblings Liza and Addison on a run from a casino heist gone wrong. After a car accident leaves their wheel man and a state trooper dead, they decide to split up and make a run for the Canadian border in the worst of circumstances- a near whiteout blizzard.

Screenwriter Zach Dean planned for his first screenplay to be a traditional straight-forward thriller. But a nerve-wracking transcontinental flight from California to New York inspired him to add the different dimensions to the story ultimately resulting to the Deadfall’s current plot.

Shortly after takeoff, the pilot realized the plane’s landing gear wouldn’t retract. The plane circled the tarmac trying to burn off as much fuel as possible before attempting a landing in a nearby landing strip at LAX. During this time, Dean pondered on his mortality and feelings about life, family as well as his unrealized desire to have children.

Upon returning home after his grueling experience, Dean’s characters leapt from the page, woven from layers of narrative thread that all lead back to the theme of family relationships. “First was the Addison and Liza story,” says Dean, of the characters played by Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde. “A brother and sister with a very dark history but still very bonded, to an unhealthy level. Survivors, who in many ways love each other very much, but are dangerous.”

The filmmakers were aware on just how crucial the relationship of Addison and Liza was to the success of the film.  Dean explains how Addison views his sister. “All these horrific things that Addison does, as long as they are for Liza, they are excusable. She remains in his view the little girl, the one he saved.   He believes his redemption lies in the fact that he does it for her.”

Actress Olivia Wilde was taken with the script on her first read: “Every page I turned surprised me,” says Wilde. “I liked that. It’s so rare. I was never quite sure what genre it was. Once I had the role, I prepared by studying a lot about interfamily abuse and incestuous relationships. An undertone of the relationship between them is a strange, haunting sexuality. It’s tense and unspoken but it’s there.

“I also studied Stockholm Syndrome,” continues Wilde. ‘Because in a sense she is a prisoner, she relies completely on Addison and she loves him in a very passionate and complex way – he is her brother, but also her captor, her lover and her savior.”

Such dedication from Wilde is the why she is one of the most-sought after actresses at present.Wilde recently starred as Jeff Bridges’ trusted friend and protector Quorra in the 3-D futuristic blockbuster, TRON: Legacy, opposite Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford in the Universal fantasy-action film Cowboys & Aliens and opposite Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman in the physical comedy The Change-Up.

‘Deadfall’ is released and distributed by Crystalsky Multimedia

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