Unless you were living under a rock this winter, you at least know Olivia Thirlby’s face. The 21-year-old co-starred alongside Ellen Page in this year’s smash hit “Juno,” and has many more films in the pipeline including “Snow Angels” and “The Wackness.” Since “Juno,” Thirlby has been generating a lot of industry buzz. She was featured as “The Girl” in February’s GQ and will be in upcoming editions of Interview, Glamour, V Magazine and CosmoGirl. In January, the New York Daily News said Thirlby is “ready to be the Next Hot Thing.”

But she said she doesn’t love every second of life in the limelight. Thirlby told her good friend and Pipe Dream’s Evan Drellich, that she hates doing interviews, she thinks the tabloids are never to be trusted, and about her upcoming lesbian werewolf flick.

Release: Did you expect “Juno” to be this big?

Olivia Thirlby: Well, we definitely knew when we were making it that it was going to be as good as it ended up being. We knew that it was going to be as special as it is. But there’s no way to predict what everybody else is going to think. I didn’t think that there’d be trouble finding an audience, but I don’t think anyone anticipated it would have this Oscar spree.

Release: Talk about your magazine exploits.

OT: I’m actually going to stop doing press because I’ve done enough. I don’t like interviewing very much, it’s a necessary evil as they say.

Release: What is it like seeing yourself on screens and newsstands? Is there a difference between seeing yourself in a movie and a magazine?

OT: Yeah, totally. The hard thing about magazines and about interviews is that pretty much everything you say can be taken out of context and it’s impossible to translate tone, so it’s really easy to end up being quoted and sounding like a complete dumbass, which has of course happened to me.

And also, GQ for example — that’s not the picture that I would have chosen. It’s fine, but you know I don’t feel great about it. It’s the kind of thing where there’s nothing you can do; 50,000 people are going to look at that picture. But you know, they’re not going to give a shit, so in the end I can’t really give a shit either.

Release: Many of your friends are in college, do you feel like you’re missing out?

OT: No, not really. I prefer living by myself in New York City and not taking classes and having to live in a dorm situation, campus situation. But, I miss learning. It’s sometimes sad to see the people around me better themselves academically where as I’m just doing non-academic things. But I do definitely plan to go to college.

Release: You have another movie with Ellen Page, titled “Jack and Diane,” that has yet to be filmed?

OT: I don’t really know what the deal is with “Jack and Diane.” It’s kind of a complicated dance that we have to choreograph. I thought originally we were going to film over the summer, but the strike is messing things up, so I don’t really know. The plan is to make that movie one day but it’s already been two years in the making, so what’s another two years?

Release: And it’s a teenage lesbian werewolf flick?

OT: The werewolf thing is a metaphor. People are going to be surprised, it’s not an average script. It’s very nonlinear and disjointed, very slowly progressing about these two girls who meet and are just kind of in love from the second they see each other. But they’re super volatile, adolescent, bitchy girls and they’re trying to figure shit out with each other, but it’s difficult. And there’s this recurring theme of one of them turning into a werewolf. It’s going to be done with animation and crazy prosthetics.

Release: What movie should people look out for in the near future?

OT: I have a film at Sundance this year which did really well. We won the Audience Award. It’s called “The Wackness.” Hopefully it’ll come out in the summer, maybe the fall, who knows. But it did get bought by Sony.

It’s a New York story, it’s really amazing actually; it’s a film that all young people love. People over 50 kind of don’t really get it, but it’s with Sir Ben Kingsley, who’s really incredible, and Josh Peck, who’s a really good actor. Method Man is in it and Mary-Kate Olsen.

Release: Mary-Kate got thrown into the Heath Ledger tragedy, what are your thoughts on that?

OT: It’s sad. I don’t know, I haven’t talked to her about it. I don’t think she’s connected at all. I think it’s just that the tabloids fucking love her. All of the Heath stuff was created by the tabloids, which are evil, and you should print this: Everything the tabloids say are lies. It seems to be something that the general public can’t grasp. Literally, all that shit is completely made up. As somebody who has honestly never been in [the tabloid gossip], but as somebody whose friends have occasionally been victimized, the shit that they write is just so hilarious. It’s just so ridiculous! And it’s really hard to see Heath Ledgers’ death be made into this big who-dun-it, because somebody died and this person was poised for true greatness in this world and it’s so sad that he’s not going to be able to contribute anymore. Let’s just leave it at that.