Olivia Jo Thirlby[1] (born October 6, 1986) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Leah in the comedy-drama film Juno (2007),[2] as Natalie in The Darkest Hour (2011) and as Judge Cassandra Anderson in Dredd (2012).
In 2007, she played Leah in Juno. Around this time, she and her Juno co-star Elliot Page were slated to star as the respective title characters of Jack & Diane as two young women who fall in love which unlocked lycanthropy in one character but both dropped out before production, and the cast was replaced numerous times over. She plays Stephanie, a marijuana-smoking "popular girl" from New York City, in Sundance Audience Award-winning mid-1990s period piece film The Wackness, which was released in the U.S. on July 3, 2008, and stars opposite Josh Peck.[2]
Thirlby was cast in the Judd Apatow-produced, David Gordon Green-directed stoner comedy Pineapple Express as the girlfriend of Seth Rogen's character, but was replaced by Amber Heard after rehearsing for the film.[8] She reunited with David Gordon Green on the animated TV pilot Good Vibes.[9]
Thirlby appeared in the 2009 HBO series Bored to Death. She voices promotional video excerpts from the novel Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher which, since October 2008, have regularly been posted to YouTube.[11] She also appeared in the 2011-released film Margaret. She was attached to star in Christmas in New York, though the film was not made,[12] as well as For Ellen, where it appears she did not accept a role.[13]
Olivia Thirlby in March 2020
Thirlby starred in the Russian science-fiction film The Darkest Hour, released in 2011, directed by Chris Gorak, and produced by Timur Bekmambetov.[14]
In an interview with Brooklyn Magazine in 2011, Thirlby said she was bisexual.[15] That same year Thirlby agreed to participate in iO Tillett Wright's Self-Evident Truths Project, an effort to capture the diversity of the LGTBQ+ in the United States through photography.[16]
In 2023, Elliot Page stated that the two were involved in a relationship while filming Juno.[17]
She married Jacques Pienaar on December 28, 2014;[18][19] she met him on the set of her 2012 film Dredd. Pienaar filed for divorce in March 2021.[20]
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