‘White Lotus’ actress Michelle Monaghan's journey from Iowa hog wrestling to Hollywood star
Michelle Monaghan might be a huge star these days, but at heart she will always be a Midwestern farmer’s daughter.
"The White Lotus" star grew up in the small town of Winthrop, Iowa, which she said had a population of 740 people at the time.
"Everybody knew your business," she admitted to James Cordon on the "Late Late Show" in 2018.
And in the summers as a kid, her business was being a champion hog wrestler.
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Monaghan told The New York Post's Alexa magazine this week that she, her husband Peter White and their two kids go back to Iowa to see her parents every summer. Despite her hog wrestling past, she told the outlet that these days the time in her hometown is more likely to involve "drinking beer outside, playing cornhole, lightning bugs, s’mores — that’s my jam, that’s my speed."
While speaking to Cordon seven years ago, the "Mission: Impossible" star went into detail about her early years rolling around with pigs.
"We had this thing growing up at the country fairs that you would sign up to wrestle a hog," she told the host, noting that she even won a blue ribbon for it. "So for year after year, like in the summer, I would be, I don’t know: 12, 13, 14, you’d grab like a gal or a partner or somebody, and you’d have a big, big metal pen probably, I don’t know, about 20 feet in diameter, and they have a big hog in the middle with a barrel, and it was full of about a foot of mud. And they’d start the clock, and you ran around chasing the hog – believe it or not, I did it – and you grab the hog."
She said she was covered in mud by the end of it.
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"You pick up the hog by all fours, and you dump it. The poor hog, I feel terrible now – I do love bacon – and then you dump it and, apparently, I’m quick in mud," she joked.
After graduating from high school, Monaghan went to college to study journalism, paying for school by modeling.
"I also knew that if I wanted to go to college, I was going to have to put myself through school," Monaghan told Interview magazine in 2016. "I come from a very humble place, my parents are working class—my dad’s a farmer—and I knew that it was going to be my responsibility. At the same time, I was coming into my own as an adolescent, and people were like, ‘Your daughter could model. Your daughter is a pretty young girl.' I went to Chicago where I had met this modeling agent, who was like, ’You could model for Montgomery Ward and Target.' I started going there during the summers and I made money. I was the girl in your local Sunday paper, and you didn’t even know it," she said.
In 2022, the "Made of Honor" star reminisced on her Instagram about her modeling days.
"I remember this day so clearly," she wrote, showing glamour shots of her at a Chicago McDonald’s in 1997. "A modeling shoot I did with photographer @foremanalan. I was gearing up to start my sophomore year at Columbia College, studying journalism. I modeled for Montgomery Ward and Target by day, and went to college by night. I worked hard, played hard and I had no idea what the future held. But I dreamt big. And little did I know the universe had so many magical things in store for me. Feeling immense gratitude for dreams, slushies and good folks along the way."
Monaghan is currently starring in the third season of HBO’s "The White Lotus," which was filmed in Thailand. She spoke to the Post about her role while she was in London filming Mark Wahlberg’s "The Family Plan 2," after which she planned to return home to her husband and kids in Los Angeles.
She told the outlet when she first discovered her "White Lotus" character was a famous actress, "I thought, ‘Oh, gosh, that hits a little close to home.' And then I got access to all eight episodes, I binge-read them, and I thought, ‘Holy s---, he’s done it again!’"
Monaghan noted that she is "as much a fan [of the show] as anyone else," and has long admired the show’s creator, Mike White.
"He’s a great observer of human behavior," she said. "He sees everything and everyone. You know everything that he writes really comes from a place of authenticity." Read her full interview in the New York Post's Alexa magazine.
After Monaghan’s modeling career took off in the late 1990s, the actress, who turned 49 today, started to get TV parts, starting with two episodes of "Young Americans" in 2000. She soon got roles in movies like 2002’s "Unfaithful," 2004’s "The Bourne Supremacy" and 2005’s "Mr. and Mrs. Smith."
She also played Tom Cruise’s love interest in "Mission: Impossible III" in 2006, reprising the role in "Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol," and "Mission: Impossible – Fallout."
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The actress has also starred in movies like 2007’s "Gone Baby Gone," "The Heartbreak Kid" and 2008’s "Made of Honor" opposite Patrick Dempsey.
She told People magazine that acting careers have highs and lows, and she feels good about where she is now.
"I'm so fortunate, and I know that there is an ebb and a flow in any career, specifically in Hollywood," she said. "And so, right now is a real celebratory moment for me. This is really exciting to be a part of ‘The White Lotus’ … I'm in flow and so that feels really, really positive to me."
Monaghan and her husband, a graphic artist, were married in 2005, when her acting career was just beginning to pick up steam.
"So, this is the only thing we know, how to be supportive and equitable," she told the outlet Fatherly in 2020. "It’s imperative that our kids see us this way. It can’t be all about mommy’s career and all about mommy’s clock. We’ve been able to navigate our careers because we’ve established that balance for ourselves."
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While on one of their trips back to Iowa last year, Monaghan told the New York Post's Alexa magazine that she had a milestone moment with her daughter.
"I was teaching my daughter how to drive in the town I grew up in, which is, like, a town of seven people," she joked. "It’s very chill, there’s not even a stoplight. So that was a really cool, full-circle moment. A realization of how far I’ve come, and all the wonderful things I have in my life."