Olivia Birkelund is a Manhattan native. She attended Brown University in Rhode Island and Circle in the Square Theater School in New York. For years, she did a lot of regional theater, such as playing "Desdemona" in "Othello" and "Helena" in "A Midsummer's Night's Dream". Of her small role as the unfortunate "Lindsey" in Denzel Washington's thriller, Bone Collector (1999), Olivia says, "It was just a victim part. She's kidnapped in a taxi cab with her husband and then dragged down to the boiler room of a very old building in New York. She's strapped to one pipe, and then he turns another pipe on her face and all this steam comes out. She gets steamed like a piece of broccoli. It wasn't that challenging and, yet, working with Phillip Noyce, the director, was so wonderful that it made that job very interesting".
