Nor, she laughingly assures me, is she responsible for the two unseasonal gingerbread houses displayed on the kitchen counter, which are the handiwork of her kids, Otis, seven, and Daisy, five, whom she shares with her ex-fiancé, Jason Sudeikis. So Wilde can’t take credit for the cheeky art selection or the cheerful, modern decor, or for the sumptuous backyard pool that beckons from every angle of the first floor. When Wilde rented it this past spring, it had already been furnished in a precisely curated, Instagrammable style we might be in a Design Within Reach catalog. This house is a respite from all that scrutiny. She can count, among her myriad accomplishments, winning the “hottest Olivia” accolade in Spike TV’s Guys Choice Awards in 2010 lately, she’s been under the public microscope alongside her beau, Harry Styles, who, on the day of my visit, is off trotting the globe for his Love On Tour concerts. Wilde, who has spent her nearly two-decade-long acting career as an object of male veneration, knows a thing or two about the rewards, and the risks, of being subjected to a prurient, if admiring, gaze.
“This is how we want them,” Wilde deadpans from her perch on a mustard-colored velvet sofa. Male butts, to be exact: smooth and shapely and dripping with water as the men they belong to emerge from a swimming pool in the black-and-white photograph that is on the wall of her sunny living room. It’s a shining late September morning in Los Angeles and Olivia Wilde is sitting, cross-legged, in front of a bunch of bare butts.