The Guardian Interviews Olivia Wilde 

‘I’ve done some bad TV so I know when something good comes around’ … Olivia Wilde, star of Vinyl Photograph: Stephanie Diani for the Guardian

Last modified on Monday 15 February 2016 06.13 EST

t’s hard to imagine anyone saying no to Martin Scorsese. But Olivia Wilde almost did. The 31-year-old actor was approached about a part in Vinyl, the hotly anticipated TV drama set in the coke-fuelled world of the music business in 1970s New York. Given that the show is directed by Scorsese and produced by Mick Jagger, most actors would jump at the offer, but Wilde had doubts.

“I was excited to get the call but then I asked, ‘What’s the role?’ They said she’s the main character’s wife.” Wilde breaks off and grins. “I was like, ‘Well, if you want me to play the long-suffering housewife, then you need to go to someone else.’ They laughed and went, ‘No, no, just you wait. She’s really fascinating.’”

Olivia Wilde and Bobby Cannavale in Vinyl Photograph: TCD/VP/LMKMEDIA

While Devon Finestra, a former Warhol groupie struggling with going straight in suburbia, isn’t given a huge amount to do in the two-hour pilot beyond looking decorative in fabulous kaftans, her story becomes increasingly interesting. Devon is not the sort of woman who sits around waiting for her man. Vinyl’s world of corrupt promotors, ambitious A&R executives and naive singers is lavishly imagined, and Devon’s scenes include flashbacks to her days hanging out in Andy Warhol’s Factory with the likes of Lou Reed.

“I saw her as a little bit Edie Sedgwick and a little bit Marianne Faithful,” Wilde says. “She’s an artist and a free spirit. It’s a very big adjustment for her to become a responsible person, live in Connecticut and be a mother. She’s very loyal and very stubborn, so it enrages her that her husband has left her out there alone.”

It’s not the sort of thing you can imagine Wilde putting up with. Sitting across from me in a hotel room in Pasadena, California, she’s unabashed about the fact that she’s not always made the right decisions. “I’ve done some bad TV so I know when something good comes around,” says the woman who’s been in everything from teen drama The OC to the short-lived series The Black Donnellys.

Most famously, she had a long stint alongside Hugh Laurie on House, as the troubled Dr Remy “Thirteen” Hadley, before heading to Hollywood and parts in Cowboys & Aliens and Rush. There, she was largely required to look lovely and stand supportively by her male co-stars, an experience she found frustrating.

Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie would pop round for dinner.​ \'Never be boring\' was the only household rule.

(Not only) looking decorative in fabulous kaftans … Olivia Wilde in Vinyl. Photograph: Niko Tavernise/Sky TV

“There are many more interesting roles for women on TV,” she says. “I have a pretty strong work ethic because of my TV experiences when I was younger. That said, I don’t know that I’ve ever had a part before on something that I would really, really want to watch every week.”

Born Olivia Jane Cockburn – she took the surname Wilde in homage to Oscar – she grew up in a family of journalists. Her mother Leslie is a TV producer, her father Andrew a reporter and documentary-maker; both her uncles, Alexander and Patrick are journalists, as was her grandfather Claude.

Wilde’s childhood in the upmarket Washington DC neighbourhood of Georgetown was both privileged and bohemian. It was common for Christopher Hitchens or Salman Rushdie to pop round for dinner “Never be boring,” was the only household rule.

Vinyl\'s fatal flaws: nostalgia overload and antihero dependency

“I actually met Mick Jagger as a child,” she says. “It’s become a family joke because I ordered him to get out of my chair at the dinner table and he told me to go to bed.” Did she go? She laughs and raises an eyebrow as if to say what do you think? Did she mention it to Jagger when she met him? Another laugh. “Noooo, I didn’t dare. He won’t remember some small child at a dinner party in the 80s”

Wilde was married at the age of 19, to Italian filmmaker and photographer Tao Ruspoli, almost 10 years her senior. It fizzled out after eight years. As she told US Elle: “I got a divorce and felt like I finally started my career. I started making movies and projects I really believed in.”

She now lives in Brooklyn with comedian Jason Sudeikis, with whom she has a son Otis, almost two, and admits that part of the appeal of Vinyl was shooting in New York. “My mother was an anomaly when I was growing up, a successful journalist and a devoted mother,” she says. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy but it allowed my siblings and I the chance to believe we were capable of the same.”

While she’s glad she said yes to the show, she didn’t simply accept every line or direction. “There’s a scene when I confront Bobby Cannavale’s character, my husband, and originally that was written as Devon comes in, sees what he’s doing and leaves. I said, ‘Look can I try something?’ And Bobby said yes so I took a swig of whisky and spat it in it in his face. There was this long, long silence and I thought, ‘Oh God, this is it, I’m getting fired.’ But then Marty came out and said, ‘Now she’s somebody.’”

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