Olivia Thirlby Biography

Name : Olivia Thirlby

Date of Birth : 6 October 1986, New York City, New York, USA

Height : 5' 4" (1.63 m)

Occupation : Actress

Thirlby was born in New York City, to an advertising executive mother and a contractor father. She was raised in Manhattan's East Village, attending school at Friends Seminary in the city's Gramercy neighborhood, where she graduated in a class of 57 students. She also attended French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts in upstate New York. She took classes at the American Globe Theatre, and briefly at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London where she completed a stage combat course with the British Academy of Stage and Screen Combat (BASSC).

At age 16, Thirlby made her entrance into the world of acting with her first commercial job. Though Thirlby was excited about her first real gig, she was disappointed in the outcome: "I wasn't very good," she told The New York Observer. "I did one for Mervins, a department store on the West Coast, so I never even got to see it." Nonetheless, she was offered her first feature film role in The Secret (2007) when she was still in high school. Shortly after, Thirlby made her U.S. film debut in 2006's United 93.

Thirlby's biggest break came less than one year later in 2007's indi mega-hit, Juno, where she played the title character's quirky best friend, Leah. Thirlby quickly learned that being a cast member of an Academy Award-nominated film has its perks: during the media's Juno-love-fest, the young starlet was offered numerous movie roles and was featured in an eight-page fashion spread in Glamour magazine. She was also named one of Vanity Fair's top picks for "Hollywood's New Wave," alongside Emma Roberts, Kristen Stewart, and the cast of The Gossip Girl.