Olivia Wilde's rise to fame was an epic one. While her amazing talent as an actress grew in the 2010s, Wilde had also begun building up a reputation as a sex symbol, and as one of the most desired actresses in Hollywood back then too. Aside from her stunning looks, another side to her that was often of great appeal to her fans was her apparent comfort and fondness for doing sexual scenes of various kinds; few actors of such merit have embraced their bodies in such a powerful and arresting way. By 2019, her time in front of the screen had become visibly reduced when she started concentrating on being a director instead.
By 2022, Wilde began filming the controversial movie, Don't Worry Darling, which also starred herself and Harry Styles, who for the last couple of years had also been her real-life partner too. In typical Olivia Wilde fashion, the film was very sex positive, and doesn't shy away from racy scenes. This became a focal point of the film when Wilde herself initially drove all the hype and dialogue around it towards the fact that she embraced female sexuality on screen and believed that sex scenes needed to depict female pleasure on screen more.
Those comments have since caused quite a stir, and Wilde even attempted to backtrack on them. Whatever her true feelings, there's no doubting that Olivia Wilde has always had a propensity for acting in, and directing some pretty steamy scenes, using her beauty in heart-racing and empowering ways. Here's a look back at some of the raciest scenes she's been in over the years.
10 Queer Kiss in House
Way back in 2007, long before Olivia Wilde became the A-List star and talented director she is today, she had a starring role in the hit medical show, House. She played a brilliant diagnostician named Remy "Thirteen" Hadley in the show. While many of Thirteen's character traits were initially kept guarded by the character, some of these gradually began coming out as the episodes moved along.
It was eventually confirmed that Thirteen was indeed a bisexual character, and she later shared a passionate kissing scene with another female character named Amy. Wilde also kissed her Black co-star, Omar Epps, on the show, and had some steamy scenes with him that caused a racist backlash which led to the star receiving death threats.
9 Kiss with Mischa Barton
Aside from being known for House, before her time on it, Wilde was also known for her recurring time on another hit show, The O.C. The teen drama show featuring rich, beautiful adolescents in the style of Beverley Hills, 90210, was a popular one in its day, and known for getting a little steamy at times. This suited Olivia Wilde just fine. After she joined the show as a fresh-faced, beautiful 20-year-old actress back then, Wilde's character Alex Kelly quickly became one of the more titillating ones from the show.
Again, her character was bisexual and dated both men and women on the show. It was, however, her time with one of the show's main characters that caught most people's attention. The reason was that the other person was played by the equally beautiful Mischa Barton, who shared an on-screen kiss with Olivia Wilde — one that Wilde later said was her favorite on-screen kiss. The pair would share other intimate scenes in later episodes on the show too.
8 Raunchy Scene from The Change-Up
The Change-Up was a typically raunchy and hilarious movie one might expect when Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman teamed up for their take on the classic body-switching trope. Olivia Wilde makes for one sultry addition to the film as she plays Bateman's sexy colleague in the film that the married character has often fantasized about being with. After a magical body switch with his best friend, who is a single man, he gets his chance.
The resultant scene is a steamy one in which Ryan Reynolds and Olivia Wilde go at it. Her character makes for one racy person throughout the film. In another racy scene, she gets a tattoo on the inside of her upper thigh.
7 She Did it Again with Butter
By 2012, you could have forgiven anyone who nursed genuine suspicions that Olivia Wilde may be bisexual in real life too. After her famed same-sex kissing scenes in The O.C and House, in the film Butter, Wilde yet again shared a sexy scene with another woman on-screen. This time, the scene was even racier for two reasons.
Firstly, the other woman was Ashley Greene, the stunning actress who had already gotten many hearts racing from her time playing Alice Cullen in the Twilight films. The scene itself had added steam since it started off with them doing more than just kissing, and they also share a passionate moment in it. Wilde also plays a stripper in the film, and has an extremely raunchy dance scene in the film because of this too.
6 Edgy Scene in Meadowland
While Olivia Wilde certainly has had a propensity for doing boundary-pushing scenes, what makes her scenes racy don't always have to do with the sexual elements of them. As a brilliant actress who also had a knack for picking well written and thought-provoking films, Wilde's most intimate scenes could often go beyond mere sex appeal — a fact she proved perfectly in the drama film, Meadowland.
In one of the stand-out scenes in the film, it initially sees Wilde in a particularly vigorous sex scene. However, what pushed this scene beyond racy and made it edgy, was the disturbing was the context of it. The film was one that dealt with extreme grief, and the ways that two parents deal with it. Once this is known, the scene takes on a deeper meaning as the roughness of it, and the way it ends with a shot of Wilde's wrists sporting scars on them made it a particularly powerful and emotionally layered moment.
5 Suggestive Moments in Vinyl
Vinyl was a short-lived adult show created by Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger, and others in 2016. It dealt with the music scene in New York in the '70s, and never shied away from how much this period in the industry was defined by an exorbitant sex, drugs, and rock n roll culture.
Wilde had some famously steamy parts in the show. In the first of her scenes from this show to make this list, Wilde shares a raunchy and suggestive dance with one of the artists who her record label executive husband is working with, while he watches with the other man's date on his lap.
Aside from the obvious sexual connotations of this seeming to be a partner swapping scene, the fact that the other couple were Black also held some deep significance, given that the show took place in the '70s, a time when society's attitudes toward interracial relationships were vastly different. Adding to the intrigue of the scene, Wilde's husband is initially on-board with everything, but later goes through a myriad of mixed emotions over her actions, and his own feelings about them, as they later share an edgy elevator scene together.
4 Scene from Deadfall
In the 2012 crime film, Deadfall, Olivia Wilde plays a fugitive casino robber who stumbles upon an ex-con boxer (Eric Bana) on his way home for the holidays. The pair eventually hook up and share a pretty steamy scene in a hotel room together.
There's nothing deeper or more layered about this one. It's just one well-directed love-making scene between two gorgeous film stars. The scene is racy in the sense that the passionate build up to the pair wanting each other is so strong, when they do end up in the room together, they don't even make it onto the bed before they can no longer resist each other.
3 Wilde Gets Intimate in Alpha Dog
Way back in 2006, Olivia Wilde played a small part in the disturbing crime drama film, Alpha Dog. However, the film held some significance for her despite how small her part in it was. Toward the end of the film, Wilde shares an intimate scene with Emile Hirsch. While Wilde bears her top half in the scene for the first time ever, Hirsch's character is already so consumed by his problems in the film that he can barely concentrate on her, and ultimately can't perform.
While the scene itself never went that far in terms of raciness and pales in comparison to some of her more controversial scenes, given Wilde's propensity for showing her bare skin in her career, this scene forever goes down in history as the first time she showed how comfortable she was with her own body.
2 Hotel Scene in Third Person
The 2013 drama Third Person features Olivia Wilde providing audiences with a showstopping scene to remember. For all the talent in one film (such as Liam Neeson and Mila Kunis), it's usually one scene in particular that stands out most. In the scene, Wilde's character, who is sleeping with Neeson's in the movie, shows up outside his hotel room with a robe that she soon drops and gives to him, saying that it's his robe, and revealing she's wearing nothing beneath it. However, it's where the scene goes next that's comically unforgettable.
He plays along, and she expects to be let into his room. He then turns the joke on her when he closes the door and locks it, leaving her to stumble through the halls of the hotel completely naked while she's captured doing so on the security cameras. It's a hilarious scene with some truly clever misdirection, and is inspiring in just how comfortable Wilde is with her body.
1 Wilde Sheds All for Art in Vinyl
In recent times, Olivia Wilde has made no secret of the fact that she believes in sex positivity for women in films. Much of the build up to the Don't Worry Darling premiere centered around the sex scenes, and Wilde's comments on them. She was even forced to cut some racy sexual scenes out of the trailer by the MPAA. This was typical for her as a director, since years before, even when she spent most of her time in front of the camera, Wilde had shown a consummate ease with doing racy scenes time and time again.
Before Vinyl was canceled after just one season, Wilde still managed to complete an iconic scene in it that heralded just how far she was willing to go. In the scene, Wilde casually removes her clothes in a room full of people to pose for an artist, with the apparent abandon of a person who is completely comfortable with herself and her body. The scene lasts quite some time after she sits on a bed, where the artist then moves her around to get the pose just right.
For the sheer raunchiness of it, the scene was by far one of Wilde's most memorable from her career. It showed early on that all her comments as a director about how much she wants sex scenes in her films, and why she believes female scenes should be more sex positive, are most likely not just superficial talk for the sake of stirring controversy. After all, as this list demonstrates, even as an actress in front of the lens, she puts her money where her mouth is, and goes further; she puts her body where her theory is.