Olivia Taylor Dudley’s career may have taken a few years to get off the ground, but the actress has more than made up for her slow start since. Over the last decade, she’s gone from making fleeting appearances in minor movies to starring in one of the most popular TV series on Syfy (The Magicians, in case you didn’t know). With the fifth season already underway, now’s a great time to catch up on a few things you might not know about the actress.
1. Chernobyl Diaries was her breakthrough
In 2007, Dudley landed her first film role (albeit a minor one) in The Anna Nicole Smith Story, a biographical film starring Willa Ford as the eponymous Anna Nicole. The film failed to set the box office on fire, and Dudley’s appearance as a dancer was more “blink and you miss it’ than revolutionary. Her next few film appearances in the likes of Remembering Phil and Birds of a Feather were much the same, and it wasn’t until 2012 that she earned her first major film role in the thriller Chernobyl Diaries.
2. She made her TV debut in NCIS
After several years of playing minor characters in small feature films, Dudley made her small screen debut in 2011 in an episode of NCIS. Guest-starring roles in the likes of CSI: Miami (2011 -2012), Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23 (2012), The Mindy Project (2013), Arrested Development (2013), and The Comedians (2015) followed. By 2015, producers clearly felt she’d put in enough leg work to earn herself a main role, something that came with the part of Alice Quinn in the fantasy series, The Magicians.
3. She had a long-term relationship with Evan Glodell
Dudley’s romantic past includes a five-year relationship with Evan Glodel, a filmmaker who shot to fame in 2011 with the indie sensation, Bellflower. After shooting and editing Glodel’s second feature film (the still unreleased Chuck Hank and the San Diego Twins) together, the pair went their separate ways in 2016. Dudley has since described the experience of shooting the film, and the impact it had on the relationship, to Indiewire. “As humans, we fall madly in love with another person and then poof, something’s wrong and it’s gone, and you’re left to deal with the mess inside your head,” she said. “Through this journey, we got to go through that mess together. (The film) is about a relationship between two people that’s no longer working. They decide to dive deep into why and how relationships end. It’s been an intense journey into the deepest darkest parts of the relationship. It’s an ever-changing beast of a movie that has made Evan and I confront all our demons and learn how to truly be honest with ourselves.”
4. She was the saving grace of The Vatican Tapes
In 2015, Dudley was cast as possession victim Angela Holmes in the demonic possession film The Vatican Tapes. The movie was a critical flop, with Rotten Tomatoes summing up the general consensus with the comment “A loud, rote exorcism thriller that presents nothing new to an already overpopulated subgenre.” The one saving grace of the film turned out to be Dudley herself, who earned rave reviews for her gripping performance, with Nicolas Rapoid of The New York Times noting: “She conveys unnerving shifts in self-awareness and sinister intent with her eyes. Her flick of an eyebrow or odd change in posture is more gripping than the film’s usual scare tactics.”
5. She’s super close to the cast of The Magicians
The Magicians was Dudley’s big TV break, and it’s a series that’s close to her heart for more reasons than one. As well as being drawn to the material itself, Dudley quickly became enamored with the team around her, and has spoken in interviews about how the cast feels like one big family. “We all just clicked as family and friends immediately and we’re super close, as close as you can be. You don’t always see each other in the offseason because we live in different places, but we really do feel like a family when we’re shooting,” she’s told Brief Take.
6. She’s one of the narrators of You Know You Want This
When she’s not filming, Dudley likes to keep herself busy with small side gigs…. something evidenced when she became one of the narrators of You Know You Want This, a collection of dark short stories written by Kristen Roupenian. Other famous names to join Dudley on the audiobook include Aubrey Plaza, Jayme Mattler, Molly Pope, Will Damron, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Emily Tremaine, Finn Wittrock, and Amy Ryan.
7. She’s created a web series
Before Dudley’s career in TV and film took off, she was busy honing her skills as a filmmaker on the long-running web series, 5-Second Films. As the name suggests, the series took the form of multiple 5-second films, with one released every day over the course of 6 years. The project, which started before YouTube took off, gave Dudley a “crash course” in filmmaking, and she’s continued to work behind the scenes writing, editing, and producing short projects ever since.
8. The Magicians has changed her
Having inhabited the character of Alice on The Magicians since 2015, it’s perhaps understandable that Dudley has started to adopt some of her traits. “She’s taught me to be smart,” she tells ShowBizJunkies. “Instead of playing into some of the tropes of females on TV and film, she lets me be comfortable in being smart. That’s what she has to offer. I have a lot of respect for Alice. I think she’s really determined, which I really love about her.”
9. She’s a huge TV fan
While some actors claim never to watch TV, Dudley is on the opposite end of the spectrum, happily admitting to being a massive pop culture consumer and an even bigger couch potato. “I love TV. I could sit and watch TV and movies all day long,” she tells the Observer. “It’s really all I do when I’m not working.”
10. She’s drawn to horror
Considering we know Dudley best for her appearances in features like Chernobyl Diaries (2012), The Vatican Tapes (2015) and Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015), it’s hardly surprising to learn she’s a horror film lover. “I am a huge fan of horror films,” she tells Shock Ya. “Horror films just keep pulling me back. I think the genre’s exciting, especially with an exorcism film, because the reality of it possibly happening to you keeps pulling people back.”
