Olivia Munn and Abusive Stepfather: 'You're Not Pretty Enough'
Actress Lisa Munn has revealed that her first practice as an actress came while she and her siblings were trying to escape the verbal abuse of her step father.
In a recent interview the actress, who appears in the "Daily Show" and has also acted in films like "Date Night," stated that she faced a challenging past while growing up as an outsider in Japan. Munn's mother divorced her birth father and had remarried an Air Force Officer by the time that Munn was two-years-old.
Munn reported that the family was often relocating until they settled in Japan, where family life was not always at its greatest thanks to her step father.
"He would always say, 'You're not smart enough, pretty enough, you have no talent,' and it would knock me down, but it wouldn't keep me down," Munn told Ocean's Drive magazine during a recent interview.
The abuse would often result in heated arguments between Munn's mother and stepfather, which left her in charge of her younger siblings. To distract them from the yelling, Munn revealed that she would often practice her acting skills.
"When [my stepfather] would be screaming his head off in the living room, I would hustle everybody into my room and launch into imitations of teachers or do scenes from movies ... And that would take their minds off of the hell that was happening down the hall," she told the magazine.
Munn reported that her mother on the other hand was direct, but supportive and pushed her to be her own person.
"My mom was blunt. 'Don't get pregnant.' 'Don't do drugs.' But she also said just as often, 'Always make a name for yourself, don't just become someone's wife.' That's how she influenced me. I work really hard to come up on my own merits," Munn said.
The actress recently released a new memoir titled "Suck It, Wonder Woman!: The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek."
In addition the actress will also appear in "I Don't Know How She Does It" this summer and the new television series "Newsroom."