9 Actors Who Had Remarkable Breakout Roles

3) Olivia Wilde – Year One

Year One was the final film to be directed by the legendary Harold Ramis before his death in February this year. A comedy biblical spoof (technically the word ‘spoof’ should in itself imply that it is a comedy, but anyone who’s seen Year One will know that the double emphasis is probably a good idea), it features a well-known cast ranging from Jack Black and Michael Cera in the leads, to American favourites Hank Azaria, Bill Hader and Paul Rudd (who is, for some utterly and completely bizarre reason, uncredited), and a plotline and production of – to max out the puns available here – biblically awful proportions. Talent was wasted (both on and behind the camera, as Rotten Tomatoes neatly summarized) and the humour was vulgar, lewd, or – more simply – humourless.

But it is not just these points that make Year One Olivia Wilde’s first notable movie role (like some others, she had had bit parts before, but Year One was the first movie high profile enough for her to be properly noticed). No, what makes Wilde’s appearance in Year One remarkable is the fact that it happened (‘happened’ being taken to mean here the way tornadoes ‘happen’) in between her starring in not one, but two of America’s most popular TV series of all time: The O.C., and – of all the series in the world – the wildly successful medical drama House.

With Wilde’s role in House running from 2007 to 2012, she was able to get a bit of a hold on a movie step ladder (not that I would have trusted it, personally) as time went on, taking up roles in gradually more solid movies such as TRON: Legacy, Cowboys and Aliens, The Change Up and In Time. But House continued with the career defibrillator until she made it into movies that – though the parts were small – were at least highly credible; Rush and Her are the standouts here.

Quite why she went with the role in Year One will – like many of the decisions that were made during the production of that film – forever remain a mystery. Of course, we all know that everyone has to start to somewhere. The problem for Wilde was that she had started somewhere – she just decided to turn around and run straight back again. All the way back to year one, as it happens. God bless the title of that movie, this stuff just writes itself.