Fashion & Beauty

Olivia Munn on her career, fashion and a special ring from Aaron Rodgers

Olivia Munn has had so many different jobs in the entertainment industry, she’s hard to pin down. And that’s just how she likes it.

“There are people who know exactly where they want to go, or they know exactly what they want to do,” Olivia says, trying to get comfortable on the studio couch after her Alexa photo shoot. “I don’t. I’m still completely evolving.”

The 34-year-old has worn a lot of hats in this business already.

She was a reporter for the videogame-heavy G4 network from 2006 to 2010, a news correspondent on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” in 2010 and 2011, and wrote the 2011 book “Suck It, Wonder Woman: The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek.”

As an actress, her projects have ranged from Steven Soderbergh’s “Magic Mike” to this year’s horror flick “Deliver Us From Evil” to the HBO show “The Newsroom,” which concludes this winter after three seasons. “Nothing makes sense,” Olivia says, deadpan, reflecting on her résumé. “My career is like Thanksgiving leftovers.”

But in retrospect, it does make sense. At least a little.

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Born in Oklahoma the second-youngest of five kids to a Chinese mother and German/Irish father, Olivia moved to Japan at age 8 with her family for her stepfather’s job in the Air Force, then returned to Oklahoma when she was 16. Those formative years expanded her tastes.

“When you are perpetually the new kid,” explains Olivia of going to different schools abroad and in America, “the one group that always takes you in is the geeks. So you kind of bond over videogames and books and comic books.”

That experience has played a part in her career choices and has made her a fan favorite at comic cons. While Olivia hops around the entertainment industry, her siblings are checking off what Olivia calls “the Asian requirements”: Her sister graduated magna cum laude from law school and just got a job at a big firm, while her little brother will become a master physicist in December — “so I’m back to being the disappointment in the family,” she laughs. “And I like it. I prefer to be at the bottom.”

Well, if this is the bottom, who needs the top?

Olivia Munn and boyfriend Aaron RodgersGetty Images

On Nov. 9, Olivia is back in “The Newsroom” playing economics reporter Sloan Sabbith for the six-episode final season of Aaron Sorkin’s drama. “It’s very difficult to find someone whose brain works like that,” she says of Sorkin. “You can’t understand genius. You just have to be thankful that you get to play with him, and thankful that it came around on your clock.”

In February, Olivia will appear in the Johnny Depp crime caper “Mortdecai,” along with Gwyneth Paltrow and Ewan McGregor. And she’s currently filming “Ride Along 2” with Kevin Hart and Ice Cube, due out next year.

This all means a lot of red carpets. Luckily, stylist Micaela Erlanger has been working with her for the past six months.

Olivia’s appreciation for fashion only developed about two years ago because she’d always conflated the idea of who you are with what you wear, thinking, “You can either be the fashion girl or you can be the smart girl,” she explains. “So there’s a part of me that always felt like I don’t want to look like I care about what I am wearing.”

But when Olivia saw women like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Kerry Washington having fun with fashion — “people who I like and respect and look up to,” she says — she began to welcome it. Now, she’s confident that “women can embrace fashion and femininity . . . and also be able to embrace your intellect and your drive. Enjoying fashion does not make you egotistical.”

And so she shops. For daily wear, she recently loaded up on Ralph Lauren crewneck cashmere sweaters and picked up two pairs of tall Céline boots, but her true addiction is denim shirts.

“I probably have, like, over 70,” she says.

On the red carpet, Olivia loves Lanvin, Michael Kors, Stella McCartney and Dolce & Gabbana.

“I tend to go more classic tailored with an edge,” she says. But then, after some consideration, she rephrases. “Actually . . . I’m not going to say that. I’m like, ‘That sounded cool,’ and then I’m like, ‘Wait, when do I have an edge?’ ”

Well, she does today, sporting dark gray jeans, black booties, a sleeveless white top with unfinished armholes and a plaid shirt tied around her waist. Her wrists and hands are draped in jewelry; she has bracelets from Stella & Dot and one from Hermès; she has rings from Bulgari and Fred Leighton.

On her right ring finger is a vintage yellow-gold ring with a large oval emerald. “This is a gift from my boyfriend, actually,” she says.

“Women can embrace fashion and femininity … Enjoying fashion does not make you egotistical.”

 - Olivia Munn

That would be Aaron Rodgers, the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, whom she’s been dating since April, after they reportedly met at the Academy of Country Music Awards.

“I wore this for a premiere,” she says, playing with the bauble gently, “and he had heard me talking to my stylist about being obsessed with it. It is such a special ring, and then he surprised me.”

Then she clarifies: “It’s not that kind of ring, by the way. It’s not the special ring. I mean, it’s a very special ring, but it is not the special ring.”

Olivia is hesitant about revealing anything more about their relationship, wary of putting herself in the public eye any more than she has to.

It’s why she struggles a bit with exactly what to post on Instagram, which she just joined this past July. She can’t bear the idea, for instance, of a certain kind of selfie: “I call them ‘Happy Mondays,’” she says of photos people sometimes post. “They think to themselves, ‘I look so pretty in this, but I can’t say that in a post. So instead I’m going to say, ‘Happy Monday!’ ’’

Still, she admits, “If I was not in the public eye, my Instagram probably would be filled with selfies.” At least there’s one public event where we can expect some pretty posts: New York Fashion Week, which she’ll likely attend in February, as she visits New York about once a month.

She’ll go to Locanda Verde in Tribeca for breakfast, stop by Ina in Nolita for shopping, and hit Magnolia Bakery — “the death of me,” she says, “with that banana pudding.” She’ll also have long meals with her girlfriends.

“A lot of day drinking in New York,” says Olivia. “I’m like, ‘How do you guys get work done?’ Everyone is always out, eating and drinking in New York. That’s probably why it’s more expensive to live there, because you just have to be out all the time, eating.”

Back home in LA — and eating at the Magnolia Bakery there, too, by the way — she’s open to what’s next. Like, really open.

“I kind of have a game plan,” she says, “but I never say my goals out loud.” Not because of a jinx factor, but because if she doesn’t achieve what she says she wants, “that would suck.”

But also she wants to keep her options open.

“What I wanted last year is not the same as what I want this year,” she says. “Life is always changing and moving.” And she says she owes her ability to face whatever comes her way with ease to her upbringing. “There is a different sentimentality about things,” she says of those raised in military families.

“We’re just like, ‘You gotta toughen up and keep going and move through life. You gotta keep moving.’ So I’m staying prepared . . . and just being ready for any opportunity that comes up.”