Olivia Munn
Lisa Olivia Munn (born July 3, 1980) is an American actress. After an internship at a news station in Tulsa, she moved to Los Angeles where she began her professional career as a television host for the gaming network G4, primarily on the series Attack of the Show! from 2006 until 2010. Munn appeared as a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from 2010 to 2011. She is known for her three-season-long portrayal of Sloan Sabbith in Aaron Sorkin's HBO political drama series The Newsroom (2012–2014).
Olivia Munn
Munn's other acting roles include a recurring role on the television series Beyond the Break (2006—2009) and supporting roles in comedy films Big Stan (2007) and Date Night (2010), and Steven Soderbergh's comedy-drama Magic Mike (2012). She starred in the supernatural horror film Deliver Us from Evil (2014), the comedy Mortdecai (2015), and X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) as Psylocke. In 2017, Munn provided the voice of Koko in The Lego Ninjago Movie, and had appeared in the History Channel series Six (2017). In 2018, she had a leading role in the science fiction film The Predator, the fourth film in the Predator franchise.
Early life[edit]
Lisa Olivia Munn was born on July 3, 1980, in Oklahoma City[1][2] to Kimberly Schmid and Winston Munn.[3][4][5] Her father is of German, Irish, and English ancestry.[6] Her mother, who is a Vietnamese woman of Chinese ancestry, arrived as a refugee in the United States in 1975 following the Vietnam War and settled in Oklahoma, where she met Munn's father.[7] Munn has a younger brother, John, a physicist; an older brother, James, a custom motorcycle shop owner; and two older sisters, Annie and Sara, the latter of whom is a lawyer.[8]
When Munn was two years old, her parents divorced and her mother married a member of the United States Air Force. The family relocated to Utah, where they resided until 1986.[9] Munn's stepfather was then transferred to Yokota Air Base near Tachikawa in Tokyo, Japan, where she spent her formative years.[10][11] She has said that her stepfather was "verbally abusive" and demeaning.[12] "When [he] would be screaming his head off in the living room, I would hustle everybody into my room and launch into imitations of teachers or do scenes from movies," she recalled. "And that would take their minds off of the hell that was happening down the hall."[13]
When Munn was 16, her mother divorced her stepfather and moved with the children back to Oklahoma City.[14] Munn attended Putnam City North High School for her junior and senior years,[15][16] then attended the University of Oklahoma, where she earned a B.A. in journalism with a minor in Japanese and dramatic arts.[17][18]
Activism and charity work[edit]
In 2011, Munn teamed up with Dosomething.org's Green Your School Challenge. She was a spokesperson for the campaign by filming a PSA regarding the challenge, and sat on the panel of judges that evaluated the entries.[52]
Munn helped PETA with a campaign that ultimately freed an ill elephant from a touring circus. Her blog for The Huffington Post[53] was credited with encouraging fans to contact the USDA on the elephant's behalf.[54] Munn posed for PETA's "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign in April 2010,[55][56] and again in January 2012.[57] In February 2013, Munn fronted a PETA release of new footage showing cruelty to animals in Chinese fur farms. She appears in the 2021 short film Save Ralph, a film by Humane Society International about animal testing.[58]
Munn has used her platform to speak out against anti-Asian sentiments, harassment, and assaults following the COVID-19 pandemic.[59] Munn was part of a roundtable discussion alongside Stop AAPI Hate co-founder Russell Jeung, RISE founder and CEO Amanda Nguyen with CBS News entitled "Asian Americans Battling Bias: Continuing Crisis."[60]
Personal life[edit]
In regard to her work in Deliver Us from Evil, Munn has said that "I didn't believe in the supernatural before this movie." However, after viewing footage from the New York City Police Department of alleged real-life exorcisms, she stated "I'm a full believer [now]."[61][62]
She is a black belt in taekwondo.[63]
In November 2017, Munn accused film director Brett Ratner of repeatedly sexually harassing her, as well as an instance of sexual assault.[64] She has supported the Me Too and Time's Up movements with both personal efforts and public statements.[65][66]
Munn was in a relationship with NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers from 2014 to 2017.[67] She began dating comedian John Mulaney in 2021,[68] and they announced that Munn was pregnant in September 2021.[69] Their son, Malcolm Hiệp Mulaney, was born on November 24, 2021.[70][71][72] Their son's middle name is in honor of Munn's Chinese-Vietnamese cultural background.[73][74][75]
In March 2024, Munn revealed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer the previous year. Munn announced that she had four surgeries in the previous ten months, including a double mastectomy. Munn described the cancer as "aggressive" and "fast moving", but was caught with "enough time that I had options".[76]