![Emmys 2025: ‘Your Friends & Neighbors’ Olivia Munn On Her Best Role Since ‘The Newsroom’ [VIDEO]](https://thecontending.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Oliviabest-scaled.jpg)
One of Olivia Munn’s first lines as Samantha “Sam” Levitt in the smart and satiric new series Your Friends & Neighbors is delivered after Jon Hamm’s Coop discovers a bite mark on his shoulder, after they’ve had sex. “I think you actually broke the skin,” Coop complains. “Well, that’s how you know I wasn’t faking it,” Sam matter-of-factly offers, without looking up from her cell phone.
Sam is clearly unapologetic and no-nonsense. She’s also one of the few folks living in the suburban playpen where the series is set that wasn’t born into privilege.
Your Friends and Neighbors focuses on Andrew “Coop” Cooper (Hamm) an uber wealthy hedge fund manager who, very quickly, downward spirals when his wife leaves him and he loses his job. He, then, decides to steal from his well-to-do neighbors. In the midst of his familial and career strife, he embarks on an affair with his ex-wife’s best friend, Sam (Munn). Her gross, philandering husband has left her for what she calls, “a younger version.”
It’s thrilling to see Munn diving in a role that gets to tap into her amazing talents the way her breakthrough part as Sloan Sabbith in Aaron Sorkin’s seminal, Emmy-winning HBO series The Newsroom, did from 2012 to 2015. That popular 25-episode series was anchored by Jeff Daniels as Will McAvoy (literally as well) and followed the behind-the-scenes maneuverings of a gaggle of employees at a fictional cable news channel. Sorkin ended the run after the third season, despite great reviews. In the decade that followed there have been rumors of a possible return. We can only hope those rumors become a reality–soon!
Born in Oklahoma City, Munn majored in journalism and minored in Japanese and Dramatic Arts. She became a reporter for Fox Sports Networks, but then decided to pursue acting and was featured in small roles in films like Scarecrow Gone Wild, Date Night and Iron Man 2. In 2011, she won a supporting role in I Don’t Know How She Does It opposite Sarah Jessica Parker. But it was the part of Channing Tatum’s sometimes girlfriend in the blockbuster Magic Mike in 2012 that cemented her film career.
Other notable screen appearances include The Babymakers (2012), Deliver Us From Evil (2014), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), Office Christmas Party (2016), Buddy Games (2019), Love Wedding Repeat (2020) and Violet (2021).
Besides The Newsroom, her TV credits include The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Perfect Couples, Six and The Rook.
The Contending had a blast chatting with Munn about her Emmy-worthy work on Your Friends & Neighbors as well as the possibility of a reboot of The Newsroom.
