Olivia Munn Bio: In Her Own Words – Video Exclusive, News, Photo, Age

Olivia Munn (July 3, 1980) is an American actress, model, television personality, and author. After starting her career in television journalism, Munn’s career shifted to acting roles. Her television roles include presenting on Attack of the Show! and The Daily Show and acting on The Newsroom, while her film credits include I Don’t Know How She Does It, Magic Mike, Mortdecai, and X-Men: Apocalypse.

Olivia Munn Bio

Olivia Munn was born in Oklahoma City, OK. She is the daughter of Winston Munn and Kim Schmidt, the latter a native of Vietnam who fled to Oklahoma after the Vietnam War. Olivia’s mother married for a second time when Olivia was only two to a United States Air Force member. With the location of military personnel changing depending on the task at hand, Munn moved around to many locations as a child. Most of her childhood was spent in Tokyo, Japan, the location of her stepfather’s station. In Japan, Munn began appearing in theater productions and did some modeling as well.

After her mother and stepfather divorced, Munn moved back to Oklahoma with her mother. She attended Putnam City North High School in Oklahoma City. She then went to the University of Oklahoma, where she got her degree in journalism with a minor in Japanese and dramatic arts.

Olivia Munn Television and Acting Career

After graduating from the University of Oklahoma, Olivia Munn landed an internship at a television station in Tulsa. She decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue and acting career, where she took up an internship at Fox Sports Net in 2004. While there, she did some sideline reporting for college football and women’s basketball games. Munn also took on her first acting roles, with a small role in Scarecrow Gone Wild, an appearance in the music video for Zebrahead’s song “Hello Tomorrow,” and a part in National Lampoon’s Strip Poker.

Munn’s first steady role came in 2005 in The N network’s Beyond the Break. She played Mily Acuna, a surfer, in the teen drama that dealt with young women surfers competing for titles. Munn appeared in 9 episodes of the show. She also had a small role in The Road to Canyon Lake in 2005.

Munn then went to the G4 Network in 2006 to take over for Sarah Lane on the daily video game program Attack of the Show!. Although she at first was hesitant to take on a role that dealt with video games, Munn grew into the role in a hurry and became a fixture as co-host of the show. She also grew to become a very popular figure among those in the video game community and its fans around the Internet. Additionally, Munn hosted various shows and podcasts for G4 during her time as Attack of the Show! co-host. Munn left the network in December 2010, but only after a long four-year run as one of the G4 network’s most visible faces.

In the late 2000s, Munn began to appear in roles in various movies. She played Maria in Rob Schneider’s film Big Stan in 2007, a major role as Nancy in the direct-to-DVD film Insanitarium in 2008, and a pair of roles in 2010 with The Slammin’ Salmon and Dave Knoll Finds His Soul.

In 2009, Munn guest starred in four episodes of ABC Family’s college comedy-drama series Greek as Lana. The next year she would also appear on NBC’s comedy Chuck and on CBS’ Accidentally on Purpose. 2010 was also a big year for Munn landing roles in movies, as she made appearances alongside Steve Carell and Tina Fey in Date Night and in the blockbuster Iron Man 2. In the latter film, star Robert Downey, Jr. had praised Munn for her improvisation during filming and led in giving her a round of applause amongst the crew.

After the completion of her time as Attack of the Show! co-host, Munn moved onto Comedy Central’s The Daily Show to join as a correspondent in 2010. Although the move was met with criticism that The Daily Show only added her because of her looks and that it was a disservice to women in comedy to add her, Munn and her staff defended the move and condemned those who thought it was sexist. Munn would end up appearing on the show 17 times between June 2010 and September 2011.

Adding onto her new roles in 2010, Munn had a starring role as Leigh in the short-lived NBC comedy series Perfect Couples. She was in the 11 episodes that aired on NBC prior to its cancellation; after coming out of its mid-season premiere as NBC’s lowest-rated scripted series, the plug was quickly pulled from the show.

Munn appeared in the comedy I Don’t Know How She Does It in 2011 by playing the role of Momo. Munn joined a cast of Sarah Jessica Parker, Pierce Brosnan, and Christina Hendricks for the film. uInterview was able to snag an exclusive interview with Munn during its release, where she shared some of her experiences about making the film with us.

Munn said her favorite part of working with Parker was “where we go into the elevator and she’s bringing all these balloons and then I pop a balloon. You know, you can’t really orchestrate that. So, when you’re looking at this, it’s a fake set. It’s not a real elevator. You see the elevator and then you see pieces of the wall and then there are two men on the side that push the elevator doors together. Sarah’s got things to say. She’s carrying all these balloons and a cake and I walk in the elevator, then she’s gotta come in and drag all the balloons in and then I’ve got to pop a balloon and then the doors close. It’s hard to orchestrate all that. Lines…all this stuff.”

“So, we kept doing it over and over and finally, we got it down,” she continued. “Everything, the timing, everything, down. The doors shut, and we were like, “Yes!” and then we noticed one balloon was sticking out. One balloon. And Sarah and I look at each other and we look up, and she just looks at me and goes, “Pull it.” And me, I just grabbed it and pulled it down and that way, it looked like the elevator was moving. So, that was my favorite moment because when you look at it in the movie, it’s all just for the comedy of it, to entertain you guys, so it’s a very big physical piece. It took all those little elements of it in just that one moment it was me and Sarah where she just says, “Pull it” and I grab it. When you see the clip, you can see that one balloon and it’s only one take, ‘cause it can only really happen once.”

In 2012, Munn made appearances in Magic Mike, The Babymakers, and Freeloaders. She also took on her biggest acting role yet by playing Sloan Sabbith in Aaron Sorkin’s HBO television news drama The Newsroom. Sabbith is an economist who presents an economic news segment on Will McAvoy’s (played by Jeff Daniels) ‘News Night’ very well, but has many conflicting relationships among the show’s anchors and producers. Munn appeared in all three seasons of the show throughout its run from 2012 to 2014.

After appearing in a co-starring role in the 2014 horror film Deliver Us From Evil, as well as a guest appearance on Fox’s New Girl as Angie, Munn joined Johnny Depp and Gwyneth Paltrow in the cast of Mortdecai in 2015. Munn was also in two films in 2016, Ride Along 2 and X-Men: Apocalypse (as Psylocke). Munn also served as a correspondent for an episode of Showtime’s documentary series Years of Living Dangerously, where she profiles Washington state’s efforts to reduce CO2 emissions.

Recently, Munn appeared in the 2018 film The Predator and the 2019 comedy Buddy Games, which starred Josh Duhamel and Dax Shepherd.

Olivia Munn Modeling and Writing Career

Olivia Munn has appeared in modeling shoots for Nike, Pepsi, Neutrogena, Men’s Edge, Complex, Playboy, Men’s Health, Maxim, and FHM (among others) through the years. She has made the cover of Playboy, Maxim, and FHM, and has also been a consistent face on both FHM‘s 100 Sexiest Women and Maxim‘s Hot 100 Women lists.

But Munn hasn’t only appeared on magazines covers. She’s also a writer for various columns and books. After participating in a shoot for Complex, she went on to become a columnist for the magazine. She has also written blog posts for The Huffington Post. Additionally, in 2010 Munn released a collection of essays about her life and thoughts titled Suck It, Wonder Woman: The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek.

Olivia Munn Charity Work

In 2011, Munn was a spokesperson for the Dosomething.org “Green Your School Challenge” as she filmed PSAs for the competition and served on a panel of judges to determine the contest’s winners. Munn is a proponent of environmental causes and has participated in many campaigns regarding them.

Munn is also heavily involved with PETA in its animal rights campaigns. Munn has participated in PETA’s “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” photo campaign on two occasions and has also been the face of some of the group’s awareness actions, including one exposing cruelty to animals in Chinese fur farms.

Olivia Munn Personal Life

Olivia Munn currently spends her time between Los Angeles and New York. In 2021, news broke that Munn was dating comedian John Mulaney. That year, the couple welcomed a son, Malcolm Hiệp Mulaney.