House star Olivia Wilde has the perfect prescription for a stress-free life: a good book, a prince of a guy, and the occasional 33-pancake breakfast
By Monica Corcoran
October 11, 2008

They call this 'the death corner,' because there are so many accidents," says Olivia Wilde, poised to cross a busy boulevard in Venice, California, on her retro-blue beach cruiser. Cars whiz by. She looks left, then right, then suddenly shouts over her shoulder: "OK! Here we go!" Great. An actress with a God complex. Then again, she does play a doctor on TV, and in a pinch, she probably could perform CPR. Or stanch a gushing head wound.

Well, maybe not. "Hmm. I don't know if I could save you. But I am fascinated with neurology, so I know a lot about the brain," says Wilde, better known as Thirteen, the bisexual M.D. with a terminal brain disorder on Fox's hit series House. ("Not only am I dying, but I'm gay. Now, that's a juicy role," she says.) Her job leads her to self-diagnose every bump and itch she gets: "Yesterday I was dehydrated and my fingers were twitching, so I thought, 'I have ALS and I probably have three years to live.' I freaked out."

Thankfully, Wilde recovered. So much so that she suggested this leisurely if slightly treacherous ride to the Santa Monica farmers' market for an al fresco lunch. For the self-described "sort-of vegetarian who eats fish," the lure is a raw-food stand and a chance to plop down and wiggle her toes in a patch of grass. "You're not going to believe this, but they have bike valets there," she says. "Only in Los Angeles, right? So crazy."

The same could be said for Wilde's rapid ascent from casting assistant to TV star. Since arriving here in 2002, the 24-year-old Irish-American has shape-shifted from a blonde nympho in the indie fave Alpha Dog to a sultry brunette in the slasher flick Turistas. ("Brunettes have more fun," she says, "because people don't know what to expect from them.") She also just finished shooting a goofy period comedy called The Year One in Shreveport, Louisiana, alongside Jack Black, Michael Cera, and David Cross. "It was freaking cold at times, and there were a lot of unpleasant conditions," she says, "but I was surrounded by the funniest human beings I have ever met. There was zero drama."

Her series of Sapphic smooches with Mischa Barton in the second season of The O.C. launched this Washington, DC, native into the role of male fantasy fodder. (The steamy kisses have garnered 100,000-plus YouTube hits, and she says she still gets letters from sexually confused young women who consider Wilde a role model.) "When I kiss a girl for a part, people think it's sexy. But if two guys kiss, suddenly there's a backlash. It's a double standard," she says, munching on a guacamole pesto taco. "Honestly, I think we're all bisexual in some way."

And who would top Wilde's own girl-on-girl tryst list? "Angelina Jolie, hands down! Just seeing an actress who has been through it all and who doesn't care what other people say about her--someone who has forged her own path," she says. Wilde met her crush at last year's Golden Globes, where Jolie was up for her role as Mariane Pearl in A Mighty Heart: "I was sitting at her knees and talking about my parents [well-known international journalists Leslie and Andrew Cockburn] and how dangerous being a journalist in a foreign country can be," she says. "Later, I was like, 'Brad who?' I didn't even realize he was leaning over her shoulder the whole time. Everyone around her just disappeared."

One guy Wilde has found impossible to ignore is her husband, Tao Ruspoli. Several years ago, she was feeling a bit turned off by L.A. guys--"they spend way more time looking in the mirror than I ever do," she says--when a friend of her parents suggested a set-up. She bristled. "He wanted to introduce me to this Italian guy who made films and lived on a school bus. I said, 'Whoa! I don't want to meet a dude who lives on a bus!'" Turns out the guy was an Italian prince whose family owns a palazzo in Rome and a castle in Vignanello, Italy. He's a filmmaker and documentarian; the bus is a mobile studio for a cinema collective he founded.

Within six months, the two had eloped--on the bus, no less. (They later had a proper wedding in Virginia.) Ruspoli was 27; Wilde, just 18. "My dad did have a minor heart attack, and it was hard to imagine settling down at the time," she recalls. "But there was this wave of romantic excitement and an overwhelming sense that we were supposed to be family. We were very open to the idea that if it didn't work, we would let it go its course. No pressure." (A quick glance at her ring finger reveals a chunky gold band, not the honking emerald-cut rock favored by Hollywood royalty.) Wilde gets a kick out of people's first reaction to her titled spouse. "Everyone expects him to pick me up in a limo or a yacht," she says. "Then Tao rolls up in this old Thunderbird, wearing flip-flops, his hair all crazy. People are like, 'He's a prince?'"

The two certainly don't live like nobility. Their bohemian Venice Beach loft is crammed with oversize abstract art, ethnic furniture, and cookbooks scarred with food stains. "I used to play hooky from school so I could watch cooking shows," says Wilde, who loves to throw impromptu dinner parties. She tries to be relaxed about her eating, but she avoids bread and pasta as much as possible--not always easy when you're married to an Italian. Cheese and good wine, however, are daily staples. "I don't own a scale, and Tao banned the word fat from our house," she says. "If we eat too much, we say, 'I feel clogged up.'"

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