Olivia Wilde’s newsy upbringing

last updated 8 January 2015

Olivia Wilde has the news in her blood, said Carole Radziwill in Glamour. The actress, 27, is the daughter of famed journalists Andrew and Leslie Cockburn; her uncles, Alexander and Patrick, also made their mark in the newspaper trade. “I remember the dining room table was covered with every newspaper from eight in the morning until night,” Wilde says. Her parents often filled the house with celebrities interested in world affairs. “They had these epic dinner parties. I would always crawl under the table and just listen. I remember Mick Jagger [talking] politics with my parents.”

Because of her political upbringing, she felt an obligation to do aid work in Haiti after the earthquake last year. “I would write [my mother] e-mails saying, ‘Today we got caught in a riot. Then there was a shooting, then later we were at a morgue,’” Wilde recalls. “Most mothers would write back, ‘Be careful,’ but she writes, ‘Send me more. Find out what’s going on with so-and-so.’ It was an incredible bonding experience. I never wanted to be a journalist. But I can’t tell you how profound it’s been to realize that [my mother] is so within me.”