It’s Sunday morning, and Olivia Munn is calling me from a Home Depot in L.A. “I’m picking up a door,” she proclaims. “And [my friend] is asking me how I think we’re going to get this door in my two-door car.” She politely excuses herself to tell her friend that they will just drop her convertible’s top and put the door in. “I have been meaning to pick up the door for two months, by the way. It’s one of those last-minute things. I fi gured that I would make it work. I am optimistic about the wrong things, like time. I think I can get somewhere quickly when I can’t. Or I think I can put a big door in my two-door car.”

But of course, Olivia Munn has every reason to be optimistic. The former Daily Show With Jon Stewart correspondent has made it on the big screen, including memorable turns in Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike, Iron Man 2, and I Don’t Know How She Does It.

The striking actress, who grew up in Japan and Oklahoma, is also hailed as the breakout star of HBO’s The Newsroom, in which she portrays Sloan Sabbith, a brilliant, sexy, yet quirky fi nance reporter who is often called in to make complicated news stories easy to understand. Making news palatable is a challenge for networks, says Munn, “because the news isn’t supposed to be entertainment.” She just wrapped the second season of the Aaron Sorkin drama, and says viewers will see some changes to the show’s structure this time around, with her character becoming involved in a subplot that runs through the entire season.

Munn’s versatility as an actor is obvious in almost every episode of Newsroom. In one, she’s seen having a lengthy, tense conversation in perfect Japanese. “[Sorkin] wrote that in once he found out that I speak Japanese. And it’s funny, because he fi rst said, ‘There’s just going to be a line in Japanese on the show. Is that OK?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s fi ne.’ A couple of days later, he says, ‘It’s going to be more like three or four lines.’ And I told him, ‘Yeah, no big deal.’ We end up seeing the script, and it’s two massive scenes. And it’s not just straight Japanese. It’s Aaron Sorkin and Japanese. It’s hard enough to do Aaron Sorkin dialogue [in English],but now do it in Japanese . . .” In another episode, Munn reveals her tough side when she pins Neal (Slumdog Millionaire’s Dev Patel) against a wall and asks him if he thinks her ass is fat. “I love Dev,” she says. “He’s fabulous on the show. Aaron Sorkin told me that fans are rooting for [a romance] between Sloan and Neal—called ‘Sleal.’ Sleal sounds like heart disease.” Speaking of medical conditions, her Newsroom character has a Ph.D., which makes her a doctor of sorts. “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV,” she says with a laugh. “I’ve never used that line, but I am going to introduce myself like that to everybody from now on.”

Unlike her HBO character, Olivia never had a workplace crush. “When it comes to work, I’ve been always able to leave work as just work. Work, to me, is the same as going to school. I didn’t have any boyfriends when I was in school because I just wanted to stay focused on the task at hand. Sloan focuses on doing a great job. I really relate to that. Until somebody comes around that makes her feel as good as her work is making her feel, she’s not going to just open the door for just anybody. And that’s a good place to be. People who are always searching for love are always just so unhappy when they should be saying, let’s try to be the best person I can be at the moment. I think that’s how Sloan is looking at life—when [the right person] comes around, she’ll make the adjustments that she needs. There’s nothing wrong with focusing so much on work. At least I don’t think so. That’s how it was in my life.”

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Many have wondered if any Newsroom characters are based on real-life personalities. Last summer it was revealed that former NY Post columnist Mandy Stadtmiller was on a date with Sorkin when she told him she was writing a “takedown piece” on Real Housewife Bethenny Frankel. He told her that their conversation spawned the creation of the show’s tabloid reporter Nina Howard (Hope Davis). Does dating Sorkin mean you might get Taylor Swifted? Silence. After all, the character of Harriet Hayes from Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was also rumored to be based loosely on ex-fl ame Kristin Chenoweth. One wonders if there are any characters in Newsroom based on feared columnist Maureen Dowd, another rumored Sorkin ex.

Another persistent rumor says the character of Sloan was based on CNN’s Erin Burnett, but Munn puts that theory to rest. “Actually, there is not one character that is based directly on one real person. I even asked [Sorkin] in the beginning if there was someone I should shadow. He said no, and said if I had any questions [about the character], I should ask him about it. I grew up loving Diane Sawyer. I went to journalism school— Sloan has some of the elements that I would have loved to have if I [had pursued journalism]. Sloan has a clean, sharp, basic look—no fl ashy clothes, not a lot of jewelry. Nothing distracting the viewer from the information that she was going to give. Like Diane Sawyer. Subconsciously, [the portrayal of my character] was inspired by Diane Sawyer. I love watching her.”

“Whoa! Sorry, hold on.” She calls out to her friend to narrowly avert dragging two shopping carts together in the Home Depot parking lot. It’s surprising that she is thisalert on a Sunday morning, given that she just spent the last 48 hours in Oklahoma helping victims of the recent tornadoes. Munn, whose family lives in Oklahoma, was particularly affected by recent events. “When something happens so close to your home and all these little children are involved . . . it makes me want to get up and do something.” And do something she did. She has been quietly working with the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma to help get food supplies to Oklahomans in need.

Munn will soon head to NYC, where she’ll fi lm a leading role in Jerry Bruckheimer’s Beware the Night. She plays the wife of a cop, in a role that’s a departure from her role in Magic Mike, in which she played a bisexual psychologist dating Channing Tatum, or Fox’s New Girl, in which she plays a stripper. “The characters both in Magic Mike and New Girl … are characters where I have to sit back and say, how am I going to play this? I am not like those characters at all—I’m just not like that. So [for those characters], I think about my friends who are like that and I try to channel them.”

Munn has had a diverse career, from hosting the cable geekfest Attack of the Show to writing the book Suck It, Wonder Woman, but there’s one area she hasn’t stepped foot in. “I was never a model,” she says. “People always say that. I think that’s a disservice to people who are actually models. I’m barely 5-4, and I probably weigh more than two models combined.” Note that the gorgeous, talented, and obviously modest Olivia Munn has been included on Maxim’s Hot 100 list for several years.

So what’s next for her? “I think the most important thing is to try to do your best in the place you’re in. Sometimes you jump too quickly to the next level and you haven’t secured the ground beneath you. I’m focusing on working hard in the moment I’m in right now. So if I go to the next level, I have a good ground underneath me and I don’t have to fall too far.”

But she pauses and cops to some theatrical aspirations. “I met Liev Schreiber yesterday. I saw him in the fi rst Broadway play I watched, Talk Radio. Growing up in a military family, I never got to see any Broadway shows. It just blew my mind, and I was so excited. [I thought it was] so amazing and wonderful to watch, and after that I saw more Broadway shows.” So what if a Broadway producer ever comes calling? “Wow! It would be wonderful to be on Broadway.”

Munn points to her mom as a huge infl uence on her personality and work ethic. “My mom is Chinese- American. The way that she talks is a little bit blunter. She would tell me that my older sister Sarah is ‘so smart’ when we were growing up. ‘Sarah’s so smart. You, not so smart. But work hard and say thank you.’ And you know what? When you learn to work hard, it’s easier to work harder. And I think people don’t say thank you enough. When I look back on life, those two little things my mom would always drill into my head sustained me and brought me to where I am today.”

Whatever she is doing, she’s opened a lot of doors in Hollywood, guaranteeing a successful career for years to come.

Note: Season 2 of HBO’s The Newsroom premieres on July 14. Season 1 is available on DVD and Blu-ray.

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