Olivia Wilde is promoting a new movie, Meadowland, which premiered at Tribeca. She’s wearing a scarf-necked Dsquared dress that makes me believe (along with last week’s fringed Marchesa dress) that she needs a new stylist. Livvy recently told Deadline how she fought hard for this role (as a mother whose child goes missing). I understand why Olivia would pursue the role — playing a mother is different from the hot girl/saloon girl/cool girl roles that Olivia usually plays. This is also personal to Olivia. Ever since she gave birth to baby Otis Alexander a year ago, Olivia’s very much embraced her real-life mom role.

Olivia has always been very outspoken and witty, and I wasn’t surprised to see her extend those qualities to mom-oriented issues like breastfeeding. She has gotten a little preachy though. Livvy has talked about “the gift of motherhood” already. She said motherhood bestowed her with a “freeing selflessness.” I bristled when she talked about looking like a mother because she sounded judgy. Now Olivia talks about how motherhood has expanded her ability to empathize. People spoke to Livvy as she and Sudeikis sipped Bombay Sapphire at the Meadowland afterparty:

On relating as a parent: “I think anyone who becomes a parent, their heart expands, and you empathize on a different level, and that’s what I think was required to tell this story as it should have been told. I don’t know if I would have been able to play [my character] Sarah without being a mother. “It’s actually kind of a gift of motherhood: You’re in touch with different levels of emotions. I think it’s all very connected.”

On balancing motherhood & work: “I feel very supported and just very lucky to be working on such good things. There are people managing much more complicated lives than me.”

On celebs who distance themselves from feminism: “Is that even true? I didn’t even know! I’m so clueless. I think people have a hard time understanding exactly what it means. If people understand it simply means equality, then possibly they would have an easier time standing up for that.”

[From People & HuffPo]

Olivia says she never could have played this role without being a mother herself. She’s now able to empathize more than during her pre-mom days, which is fine. I just wish she didn’t make sweeping statements. The key to empathy is placing oneself in another person’s shoes, regardless of whether you’ve experienced the situation at hand. Perhaps Livvy is talking about sympathy, not empathy. It’s true that motherhood brings about new fuzzy feelings, but moms aren’t any more evolved than women who don’t have children (for whatever reason).

Olivia redeems herself by talking about feminism. She’s correct, a lot of people don’t know what the word means, and they don’t bother to educate themselves. I also like how Olivia recognizes that she has a less complicated working-mom life than a woman who works a traditional full-time job or stays at home with the kids and no outside help.

Here’s some more strange Trebeca fashion from Olivia. The diagonal-stripe dress is Tory Burch, and the sequin top and trousers are Christian Dior. Is she trying to pull off Jolie stying with the Dior?

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet & WENN