Olivia Wilde says she won her Emmy “for her mom,” and she had an unexpected — but perfect — reason
It’s always exciting to be recognized, but Olivia Wilde’s Emmy for Body Team 12 had more meaning to it than you may think. After the award arrived in the mail, Wilde shared a story about why it’s more than a trophy.
Wilde won the award for Outstanding Short Documentary at the the News & Documentary Emmy Awards for Body Team 12, which she co-executive produced with Paul G. Allen. The film, which also won the Tribeca Film Festival award for Best Documentary Short, tells the story of the Liberian Red Cross workers and their struggle to remove the dead after the Ebola outbreak in 2014. HBO purchased the television rights to the documentary in 2015.
The film offered offered powerful insight into a global tragedy, and we’re sure that Wilde would have been proud of her work even without the Emmy. But still, having the trophy in her home — and seeing her son Otis’s reaction to the honor — sparked a memory that we’re happy she shared.
Wilde’s mom, Leslie Cockburn, was also in the industry. As a writer and reporter, she had won an Emmy for her work. Apparently Wilde was mesmerized by her mother’s trophy but was also a little careless. While playing with it, she accidentally broke off a piece of it, which Cockburn was okay with, under one condition.
"She told me it was okay, but now I just had to win her a replacement," Wilde wrote. "Only took me 30 years. This is for her."
We have a feeling her mom is just brimming with pride!
Wilde currently has two movies about to come out, and one of them — A Vigilante — is about a woman who helps victims leave their domestic abusers. We have a feeling it’s going to be a huge success.
