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know how to really communicate with people or even see people standing in front of them. No matter how rich or famous or successful or powerful somebody is, I exist just as much as you exist. Treat people like people." We could all benefit from taking a page from these women's books, especially Olivia's. As beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside, the generous actress has been known to gift much more than is expected: she helped her sister through law school, bought her mom a house, and has purchased a couple of other big-ticket gifts for loved ones in the past. "I try to get really good gifts for people," she replies when I mention what an excellent gift-giver she is. What's the most extravagant gift someone has given you? "My boyfriend [Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers quarterback] gives me the most amazing gifts and really amazing jewelry. He'll find vintage pieces and he knows I love one-of-a-kind pieces or something that you can't really find. The very, very first real gift he got me is still one of my favorites. He got me this emerald ring from Fred Leighton years ago," she says wistfully. As for their holiday traditions, those are being developed. "I don't have traditions." She pauses to think about it. "I guess we're starting to make them. Just be at home with my boyfriend and our dogs." (Olivia lives in Los Angeles, California and Green Bay, Wisconsin.) Olivia recently shot a cute Xfinity ad, where she tackles the holidays –cooking the turkey, watching movies— with her dogs, Frankie and Chance Rodgers. Life does imitate art here, she does cook and loves baking, particularly cakes and breads. And this season, she is set on mastering cookies. "I actually realized I've never baked cookies. Cookies are a completely different breed." She found this out when she randomly decided to whip up some holiday cookies. "The physics of a cookie was very difficult for me. I tried two sugars, gingerbread, an eggnog cookie, and a peanut butter cookie. They all —I bombed," she says of the ambitious two-day attempt. "They weren't good, so I went to holiday cupcakes. But I'm going to master the cookie." The waitress comes over and Olivia orders a Coke, essentially to wake herself up. Once the waitress disappears, she contemplates ordering French fries. "I always want French fries, but then I'm thinking about this dress I have to wear and there's a part of me that's like, ahhh," she sighs. Do you really have to watch what you eat? "I yo-yo a lot. I can lose weight quickly, but I can put it on quickly. I'm not very tall. I'm 5'4 ½. When people are really tall, there are more places for the weight to go on their body… Last year, I lost a lot of weight when I was doing X-Men and I didn't realize, and I was just eating healthy." She attributes the 12-pound weight loss to the martial arts and sword training she did for her role as Psylocke. "It's such a difference when you're doing the best things for your body and eating the best things. But I just think French fries are good for your soul." She laughs. An avid researcher, Olivia is constantly searching for ways to keep her body healthy and youthful. "French fries are not on that list," she says with a smile. However, they are at the top of her list when it comes to late night cravings, along with Rocky Road ice cream and chips. "My boyfriend has a sweet tooth. I have a salty. Sweets you can only go so far with it. You can fix it with a cookie. But with salty, it's usually like pasta or French fries — it's never just one thing." As we chat, I notice that she is uncharacteristically (considering what I've seen of her in the past) reserved and maybe a little careful with how she answers. Past interviews show you a little more… uncensored. "Yeah." Has that changed a little bit? "Yes," She laughs. "It's funny, I was thinking about that the other day. It's changed in a way that even then I had realized. Like, oh, when you say something —something comes off different in print, like sarcasm comes off different." She found that some journalists were furnishing her with opinions that weren't her own or they were taking her answers out of context in order to use them as attention-grabbing headlines. Because of her past experiences with the press she's more cognizant of who she sits down with for interviews. "People are allowed to ask what they want, but I'm also allowed to not do certain interviews, so then I just don't… But I've pulled back in a way that I'll think a little bit more about if I'm going to say something crass or inappropriate," says Olivia, who shares that she used to curse all the time. Her perspective changed after she watched an interview of herself on the red carpet where "every other word was f-this and f-ing this and f-ing that." On The Daily Show at the time, she asked Jon Stewart whether it came off badly. "He was like, 'You know what? For some people, it could distract, then they only really hear that.' I'm learning as I go, like what things are distracting from what I'm really trying to say. My intention is never to put people off." Now, before she tells a joke, she quickly decides if it's one that can be said in public or should be reserved for friends.