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She's Number One
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The sizzling-yet-mysterious—and newly crowned Maxim hottie—Olivia Wilde on beating Angelina, how she stays so damn hot (think spice rack), and who should’ve been No. 1 instead of her.
Until recently, dual Irish-American citizen Olivia Wilde had been known mainly for her sultry roles on screens big and small—such seductively mixed-up characters as Alex Kelly, Mischa Barton's lesbian love interest on The O.C., doomed femme fatale Thirteen (aka Dr. Remy Hadley) on House, and the haughty Princess Inanna, opposite Jack Black in next month’s zany hunter-gatherer comedy, Year One.
But now the 25-year-old Wilde has gone from sultry to flat-out hot: She’s Numero Uno—in other words the absolute most smokin’, stunning, sizzling—on Maxim’s brand new Hot 100 List (and that’s up from her No. 61 ranking just a few years ago). Wilde took a break from filming Disney sci-fi thriller TRON 2.0—she stars alongside Garrett Hedlund and Jeff Bridges—to talk to The Daily Beast.
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What is your definition of "hotness,” and just how hot are you?
"Hot" has become a euphemism for all things positive, making it generally acceptable to use to describe everything from a jalapeño to a drum solo. It's sort of a useful word. We don’t have to think of appropriate adjectives for people, places, performances, tacos, or objects anymore as they all fit snugly under the glorious umbrella of "hotness." So I don’t know how hot I am but I'm honored to be considered as warmer than the average taco.
What do you make of the modifier "drool-worthy"?
My bulldog drools constantly so I'm not sure that term is too exciting.
What’s your hotness regimen?
Fourteen tablespoons cayenne pepper in my VERY HOT coffee each morning.
How did you manage to beat out Angelina Jolie (26), Beyoncé (14), Jessica Alba (34) and Michelle Obama (93)? No false modesty, please.
Michelle will always be No. 1 on MY list. And as for those other goddesses of hotness, I think they have their own list, up on the next level, called Hotter-Than-The-Earth's-Core.
This was quite a come-from-behind upset. Was there a behind-the-scenes campaign? Do you feel like the Barack Obama of Maxim's Hot 100 list?
No campaigning on my part, but who knows, maybe there was an unprecedented, enormous grassroots movement involving millions of brilliant and motivated students across the country—and globe for that matter—that I just didn’t hear about.
How did you learn of this signal honor, and how have your friends, family, fellow TRON 2.0 cast members and craft-services providers reacted? What does your husband, Tao Ruspoli, think?
My publicist emailed me, and then I re-read the email thrice, as I assumed she had forgotten the last two zeros when typing my ranking. Everyone has been tremendously kind and congratulatory. I feel as though I've accomplished something really important, like winning the Nobel Peace Prize or saving a woman from a polar-bear attack at a zoo.
How’s TRON 2.0 filming going—are you getting any sleep?
I'll sleep at Christmas. Filming is going well. We are shrouded in secrecy so the only scoop I can give you is that the blank really did that amazing blank stunt in the blank blank with other blank.
Extra credit: Assuming you've retained some medical knowledge from House, what is the best way to avoid contracting swine flu?
Wash your hands!
Lloyd Grove is a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Megan Fox is still the hottest. Eat your hearts out.
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You get real my dear!
As I perfectly understand where you're coming from, it is also why First Lady Obama was listed.
White female beauty has been in the cross to bear for African-American women and other women-of-color.
To this very day, women-of-color ALL over the planet are emulating european women. It is because of these stupid, ridiculous, brain washing lists!
Even first lady obama is guilty of this(her HAIR!).
I wish that reporters, the media, would come at these evil little rating and rankings another way-with power and empowerment and intelligence. Instead of perpetuating it!
It was soundly done with last year's Italian Vogue.
Unfortunately, sadly, this nonsense does make a difference.
Too bad Lloyd Grove didn't.
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Totally hideous.
Come on ladies! Aren't any of you at least a little annoyed at yet another "cattle list", men ranking women, giving them a number based on T&A? And why is this a lead item on a supposedly cutting-edge news blog?
Note - while Maxim is a men's magazine, humans have been admiring their own and the opposite sex's beauty for thousands of years. Fashion magazines and women's magazines can also tend to be more critical of women than men's magazines, perhaps adding more to the misconceived ideal of a woman that women are stressing to achieve. Also main stream magazines make lists of the most beautiful people to include men. And then also, perhaps in a delightful nod to beauty, if you look at Olivia Wilde, she hardly stacks up to many other contestants which she beat out for this ranking in what you say is only based on T&A. Respecting her whole person from her body, her fashion, her charisma, to many other facets is a step in the direction from looking at women as "cattle" which, arguably, it did not so much as celebrate the opposite sex.
We've also been pickin' our noses and scratchin' our butts for thousands of years but that doesn't mean we hold these behaviors to be sacrosanct and beyond reproach, Chucklehead.
I think the authors of this list evidence a preference for cute little boys rather than women. I mean no insult to Oliva Wilde; she is striking, but rather epicene--just enough of a girl for men who really are not strongly attracted to women but can't admit it. The shame is that the clout of such fellows in the media, glamour, and fashion industries is twisting the self-image of many women. Even Marilyn Monroe would have been required to undertake a starvation diet to achieve their boyish standards of beauty.
List is deliberately puzzling - the less sense it makes the more people try to check out Maxim to see exactly what is going on.
Are we supposed to know who she is?
Hottie number 1 in a wank-off lad-mag. What an honor.
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She's only 25? Yikes. That must be a bad picture.
Lists are fine, and she's very pretty, but she's also a fucking idiot. Do these people actually think before they speak?
That you would call her that lousy name shows that you are--
This young woman does not take herself seriously-so refreshing that she delivers this news through her humor. That you don't get her humor, demonstrated nicely in this reporting by the way, is why you are what you accuse her of being-an idiot. I'll leave out the adjective you included---you do know what an adjective is, don't you? --it's abbreviated adj.---You do know what abbreviation means, don't you?
She's not pretty to me - she's barely average, and about 25 pounds underweight!
Yet another brilliant piece by ace reporter Him-Lloyd Groove.
Smart girl. She seems quite aware of just how stupid that list really is.
Excuse me, but by what criteria is Olivia Wilde the "hottest woman in the world"?
Her face is average and her body is breastless and WAY WAY WAY TOO SKINNY!!!!
Looking at that picture makes me want to buy her a scrambled egg and sausage breakfast - and an 8 oz cheeseburger and fries lunch and a steak and potatoes dinner.
Every day.
For the next five years.
Until she gets some God damned curves!
She's built like a 12 year old girl - only a straight up pedophile would find her "hot" - let alone the "hottest woman in the world"!
Maxim needs some REAL MEN on their editorial boards - so we can see some REAL WOMEN on their magazine cover!
Remember
ANOREXIA BAD
BIG BREASTS AND BIG HIPS GOOD
Re: the sermonizer who complains about Michelle Obama's too-white hair style --- yep, I REALLY want to see our First Lady with a bushy Afro, or dreadlocks, or cornrows --NOT! --
well, maybe cornrows would be OK. Why do cranky people leave comments on articles not intended to be taken very seriously? In the interests of fair disclosure, I should relate that I am a friend of a former first-runner-up in the Miss Czech Republic pageant. the Czech Republic probably has mre beauty pageants than most other nations -- the Czechs are also the world's biggest beer imbibers...
Dearly Beloved,
I am gathered here-yet again! For another idioctic article on women and their bodies.
Oh lord! How weary I is of female ofeys trotted out to be eyeballed at!
Our lil tar babies just a keep on pickin' them white baby dolls every time they see this devil s@$t!
By the way-what's an afro? And what's dreadlocks? Cornrows?!? Do you see them in real life or discussed on the internet in worthless, inane articles-or magazines?
Wait a minute! I do feel cranky...!
And a "bushy" (don't miss the pubic hair analogy here, folks) afro would be bad on Michelle Obama because...
because you are too aesthetically challenged and so politically brainwashed that you can't acknowledge non-Eurocentric beauty; because you're a complete idiot; because we can't have the first lady going around lookin' like she might be of African descent; because it would obviously be a political statement and confirm you latent fears of an African-American conspiracy to promote black power....hmmm...maybe, all of the above?
But let's not take any of this seriously! Women aren't supposed to be taken seriously, are they freakpants? We might just be a wee bit cranky because we're kind of sick and tired of this utterly relentless stupidity. You reckon?
Oh, and the Miss Czech Republic shit...nobody's buyin' it and if they were, nobody would care anyway.
this picture screams, "FEED ME" - that is not hot
Oh she is a real hottie! Especially when you consider that fake boob boobie Ms. California deadbeat turnup personality.
Nice Q&A. But it looks like it comes from an email interview, not a phone or in-person conversation. If so, that should be noted. Having a source write a response is very different than getting one off the cuff.
Who is Olivia Wilde? What is Maxim? What is hot about a starving bag of bones with no boobies and a very large head?
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It's called the Lollipop Look...big head, no body. And GREGORYABUTLER? I want to marry you! :)
Next to Mary Louise Parker, you mean, right?
If you read the blurb about Michelle Obama on Maxim's Hot 100, who'll see that she is being compared to other First Ladies. Maxim says she is the HOT First Lady. That's because she allows herself to be seen as sexy. Her body is tight, her clothes are form fitting, her arms are bare, and she probably wears open toed sandles. Lura Bush has a pretty face, but she did not have a tight body and she wears clothes that do not flatter her body. Jackie O would have made the list, but Maxim did not publish in the early 1960s.
Thank you.
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