Olivia Wilde/Home & Away

[jldraw]

Sometimes H&A mentions pop up when you least expect them to:

Olivia's fond memories of a Wilde time in Ardmore

Olivia Wilde is starring in a hugely futuristic film, but it is her past in Ireland she keeps coming back to, discovers Evan Fanning

By Evan Fanning

Sunday December 12 2010

'WHAT was on TV in Ireland every day at 6.30pm when we were kids?" Olivia Wilde asks in a state of almost giddy recall. I'm struggling to think of the answer but, thankfully, she jumps in. "I'll sing you the theme tune."

And then one of cinema's biggest rising stars breaks into song. "You know we belong together/ You and I forever and ever/ No matter where you are/ You're my guiding star."

Eventually, I guess it's Home and Away (I was a Neighbours man) and Wilde crackles with laughter. The 26-year-old's trip down memory lane has led her to her childhood summers spent in Ardmore, Co Waterford, where her grandfather, the left-wing novelist and journalist Claud Cockburn, set up home after leaving the UK shortly after the Second World War.

Her father, the journalist Andrew Cockburn, left Ireland for Washington DC, where he has written on politics and produced documentaries with his wife, Olivia's mother, Leslie. It's fair to say that Wilde (she chose a stage name in honour of Oscar) has some serious credentials.

In addition, her husband of seven years, documentary maker Tao Ruspoli, is an Italian prince and it means that Wilde is technically a princess -- but a princess whose formative years were spent on the Irish coast horse riding, fishing and jumping off the pier into the icy Irish Sea. And then there was the daily dash home to find out what was happening in Summer Bay. "We were obsessed with Home and Away," she says. "I remember sprinting down the hill to our friends Katy and Sarah's house, and my sister and I would run in the door to watch it."

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http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/fi...re-2457776.html