Olivia J. Thirlby (born October 6, 1986) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Leah in the Oscar-winning film Juno (2007), as Natalie in The Darkest Hour (2011) and as Judge Cassandra Anderson in Dredd (2012). In June 2008, Thirlby was described by Vanity Fair as a member of "Hollywood's New Wave".

Biography

Thirlby was born in New York City, New York 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, and Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts (the Long Island summer arts camp also attended by Natalie Portman and Mariah Carey). 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).

Thirlby is a participant in iO Tillett Wright's Self-Evident Truths Project. In an interview with Brooklyn Magazine (with photos shot by iO) in 2011, Thirlby publicly came out as bisexual and stated why she decided to be a part of a photography project that focuses on people who are "anything but 100 percent straight."