Olivia Munn

• 1. Introduction

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  Olivia Munn learned to perform as a way of protecting her siblings. When her stepfather was screaming in the living room, she hustled everyone into her bedroom and launched into imitations of teachers and scenes from movies. The act pulled their minds away from "the hell that was happening down the hall." She has described that stepfather as verbally abusive. Munn is now an American actress, and her career has moved through gaming television, late-night comedy, prestige drama and superhero films. How does a child who first performed for an audience of brothers and sisters end up in front of millions? And what did she do with that attention once she had it?

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• 2. Air Base Childhood

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  Lisa Olivia Munn was born in Oklahoma City on the 3rd of July 1980, to Kimberly Schmid and Winston Munn. Her father has German, Irish and English ancestry. Her mother is a Vietnamese woman of Chinese ancestry who arrived in the United States as a refugee in 1975, after the Vietnam War. She settled in Oklahoma, where she met Munn's father. Munn has two brothers and two sisters.

  When Munn was two, her parents divorced. Her mother then married an officer in the United States Air Force, and the family moved to Utah, where they lived until 1986. After that, her stepfather was transferred to Yokota Air Base, near Tachikawa in Tokyo, Japan. Munn spent her formative years there.

  The household changed again when she was 16. Her mother divorced the stepfather and moved the children back to Oklahoma City. Munn spent her junior and senior years at Putnam City North High School. She then went to the University of Oklahoma, where she earned a B.A. in journalism with a minor in Japanese and dramatic arts. Internships in television news were the next step.

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• 3. Gaming Television

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  At KJRH-TV, an NBC affiliate in Tulsa, Munn worked as an intern before heading to Los Angeles. In 2004 she also interned at Fox Sports Networks and worked as a sideline reporter for college football and women's basketball. She did not enjoy it. In her words, "I was trying to be something I wasn't, and that made me really uncomfortable on live TV."

  In Los Angeles she took whatever acting work she could find, often credited as Lisa Munn. She won a small role in the direct-to-video horror film Scarecrow Gone Wild. She played the love interest of lead singer Justin Mauriello in Zebrahead's music video for "Hello Tomorrow." She also appeared in National Lampoon's Strip Poker, filmed at Hedonism II, a naturist resort in Negril, Jamaica, alongside Kato Kaelin. That film aired on DirecTV and In Demand pay-per-view.

  In late 2005 she began playing teen surfer Mily Acuna in the drama Beyond the Break. The show aired over two seasons during Noggin's teen block, The N. Munn had auditioned for the role of Kai Kealoha, but the producers wanted a "local girl." She enjoys surfing and still practices it.

  Then came a contest. In 2006 the gaming network G4 invited the public to compete to replace departing co-host Kevin Rose on its show Attack of the Show! Munn won, and on the 10th of April she began co-hosting with Kevin Pereira. She replaced temporary co-host Sarah Lane. The network was at first hesitant, since Munn admitted video games were her "weak point." She was confident in her technical knowledge, though.

  On the show she appeared with journalist Anna David in a segment called "In Your Pants," which answered viewers' questions about sex and relationships. Alongside the show she hosted Formula D, a now defunct program about American drift racing. She also hosted an online G4 podcast called Around the Net, formerly known as The Daily Nut. Her film work continued in the same years. In Big Stan, a 2007 Rob Schneider film, she played his character's receptionist, Maria. She also had a significant role as an asylum nurse in the horror film Insanitarium.

  Magazines noticed her quickly. Foam put her on its Fall 2006 cover, and in November 2006 Complex ran a pictorial of her and later made her a columnist. In February 2007 she appeared as "Babe of the Month" in a non-nude Playboy pictorial. Men's Health featured her in July and August of 2007, and the Italian Vanity Fair included her in its "Hot Young Hollywood" issue that September. Playboy gave her its cover for July and August 2009. Maxim followed with covers in January 2010 and February 2011, and FHM did the same in January 2012. Readers voted her number two on Maxim's Hot 100 Women of 2012. She also appeared in advertising campaigns for Nike, Pepsi and Neutrogena. She left Attack of the Show! in December 2010, and Candace Bailey replaced her.

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• 4. Late Night Scrutiny

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  On the 3rd of June 2010, Munn debuted as a correspondent on Comedy Central's The Daily Show. Within days, Irin Carmon of the website Jezebel questioned her credentials. Carmon suggested that Munn was better known as a sex symbol than as a comedian. Munn denounced the column. So did the show's female writers, producers and correspondents, and 32 of them posted a rebuttal on the show's website. They said the Jezebel piece's description of the Daily Show office was not accurate.

  Munn went on to appear in 16 more episodes between June 2010 and September 2011. TV Guide named her signature segment "Tiger Mothering," which mocked the high expectations of Chinese mothers. She did it in part by interviewing her own mother. Her last episode as a correspondent aired on the 2nd of September 2011. Years later, on the 6th of August 2015, she returned for a brief segment in host Jon Stewart's final show.

  Television elsewhere was less steady. In 2009 she hosted Microsoft's Bing-a-thon on Hulu, an advertisement for the Bing search engine, alongside Jason Sudeikis. That year she also played Cappie's love interest, Lana, on ABC Family's Greek. In May 2010 NBC announced she would star in the romantic comedy Perfect Couples. It premiered on the 20th of January 2011, and the network canceled it before the first season finished.

  Her book arrived in the middle of this stretch. Suck It, Wonder Woman: The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek was released on the 6th of July 2010. It includes her account of the Playboy shoot. Olivia Giovetti, reviewing it for Time Out New York, said the book offers glimpses into Munn's life but does not go into depth. The next project would give her far more room to show what she could do.

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• 5. Sloan Sabbith

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  Robert Downey Jr. led the crew of Iron Man 2 in a round of applause for Munn's improvisation skills. She had a role in that 2010 film, and another in Date Night the same year. She guest-starred on NBC's Chuck as a CIA agent in 2010 as well. In 2011 she appeared in I Don't Know How She Does It as Momo.

  The year 2012 was crowded. She had a leading role in The Babymakers and a minor role in Freeloaders. She also appeared in Magic Mike, directed by Steven Soderbergh. On FOX's sitcom New Girl, she played Angie, Nick's stripper girlfriend, in three episodes of the second season.

  The breakthrough was Aaron Sorkin's HBO series The Newsroom. Munn played Sloan Sabbith, an economist at the fictional news network ACN. Her colleagues included lead anchor Will McAvoy, played by Jeff Daniels. The series ran for three seasons. Since it ended, Munn and her costar Thomas Sadoski have discussed with Sorkin their desire for the show to return.

  On the 12th of May 2014, she appeared in "True Colors," an episode of the Showtime documentary series Years of Living Dangerously. As a correspondent, she interviewed Washington State Governor Jay Inslee about his efforts to reduce CO2 emissions in his home state. Her commercial work also changed that June. She was hired as the main promoter of Proactiv acne cleanser, starring in several commercials and an infomercial. The commercials show Munn experiencing acne herself. A children's cartoon was waiting in January 2015.

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• 6. Franchises and Fallout

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  Beginning in January 2015, Munn voiced Phoebe Callisto on the Disney Junior animated series Miles from Tomorrowland. In 2016 she was cast as Elizabeth Braddock, known as Psylocke, in X-Men: Apocalypse. To take the part, she turned down an offer to appear in that year's Deadpool film. X-Men: Apocalypse received mixed reviews but was a financial success, grossing over $500 million worldwide. That same year she also had a leading role as a technical supervisor in the comedy Office Christmas Party.

  Television followed. She starred as a CIA operative in the series Six. She also appeared on Season 13 of America's Got Talent as a guest judge in the second Judge Cuts episode.

  In 2018 she played a biologist in The Predator, a science fiction horror film and the fourth installment in its franchise. After the film's release, it came out that her co-star Steven Wilder Striegel was a registered sex offender who had preyed on a 14-year-old girl. Striegel shared one scene with Munn, and it was his only appearance in the film. When she learned this, she told her fellow cast members. She then asked that the scene be cut, and 20th Century Fox agreed.

  Her later work spread across formats. Love Wedding Repeat, a 2020 Netflix romantic comedy, is a remake of the French feature Plan de Table. In The Gateway, released in 2021, she played a single mother. A social worker steps in when the girl's father returns from prison and lures them into a life of crime.

  From 2021 to 2024, Munn voiced the supervillainess Akiko Yokohama, also called Lady Bullseye II, in the adult animated series Hit-Monkey. In 2025 she began starring in the Apple TV+ drama Your Friends and Neighbors, alongside Jon Hamm and Amanda Peet. The same year brought a different kind of recognition.

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• 7. Speaking Up

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  In April 2010, Munn posed for PETA's "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign. She did so again in January 2012. She also helped PETA with a campaign that ultimately freed an ill elephant from a touring circus. Her blog for The Huffington Post was credited with encouraging fans to contact the USDA on the elephant's behalf. In February 2013 she fronted a PETA release of new footage showing cruelty to animals on Chinese fur farms. In 2021 she appeared in Save Ralph, a short film by Humane Society International about animal testing, where she played a rabbit.

  A different cause came in 2011, when she teamed up with Dosomething.org's Green Your School Challenge. She filmed a public service announcement for the campaign and sat on the panel of judges who evaluated the entries.

  In November 2017, Munn accused film director Brett Ratner of repeated instances of sexual harassment, and of one instance of sexual assault. She has supported the #MeToo and Time's Up movements through personal efforts and public statements.

  After the COVID-19 pandemic, she spoke out against anti-Asian sentiment, harassment and assaults. She joined a CBS News roundtable called "Asian Americans Battling Bias: Continuing Crisis." The other participants were Russell Jeung, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, and Amanda Nguyen, founder and CEO of RISE. In 2021 an episode of The Demi Lovato Show was titled "Olivia Munn Speaks Up & Fights Back." Time magazine named her one of its Women of the Year for 2025.

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• 8. Private Life

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  Munn is a black belt in taekwondo. She also changed her mind about the supernatural while making the 2014 film Deliver Us from Evil. In her words, "I didn't believe in the supernatural before this movie." Then she watched New York City Police Department footage of alleged real-life exorcisms and said, "I'm a full believer now."

  From 2014 to 2017, Munn was in a relationship with NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers. In 2021 she began dating comedian John Mulaney. In September of that year, the pair announced that she was pregnant. Their son Malcolm was born on the 24th of November 2021. His middle name, Hiệp, honors Munn's Vietnamese heritage.

  In March 2024, Munn revealed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer the previous year. She said she had undergone four surgeries in the previous ten months, including a double mastectomy. She described the cancer as "aggressive" and "fast moving." It was caught, she said, with "enough time that I had options."

  Munn and Mulaney married in New York in July 2024. Their second child, a daughter named Méi June, was born via surrogate on the 14th of September 2024.

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