Liv Tyler is a 90s icon. The actor, who made a name for herself in films such as Empire Records, Armageddon and, of course, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, hasn’t been as prolific recently, although she is starring in Brad Pitt’s space vehicle Ad Astra.
However, it’s not her acting work that has people obsessing about her over the past few days. After she filmed a house tour for Architectural Digest, clips from the video soon began to circulate on Twitter. Why? Because the whole thing is brilliant, wild and so unbelievably extra.
We’re always here for a bit of house porn, and fondly remember the era of MTV Cribs. But Liv Tyler’s guided tour of her New York brownstone is on another level. From the minute she opens the door, she exudes the energy of a mom who had a few glasses of expensive white wine at lunch and who, on their way home, bumped into a stranger and decided to show them around her luxurious house. Tennessee Williams would have a field day.
With a purring whisper, Liv leads a cameraman around her multi-million dollar abode (that she bought aged 24 — LOL), which she explains used to be different apartments that she gutted and turned into one huge townhouse. She giggles at items that have been in her house for decades, as if they’d just randomly been placed there and she was marvelling at them for the first time. Her voice, an amalgamation of Paris Hilton, Ariana Grande and Jessica Rabbit, doesn’t let up, and neither does her wide grin, which she maintains even when delivering earnest one liners like “We do a lot of stair climbing every day”, “We need to hangout in my attic more often” and “That’s crazy; I was a barbie”.
The whole video sits at over 11 minutes long, and while there are some condensed versions roaming around Twitter, they miss out some pure gems. So here we are to help you with our picks of the best bits of Liv Tyler’s bizarre house tour.
When her sliding doors don’t work
While floating around her home, she shows her parlour (!) before introducing us to the first of many pocket doors, which are essentially sliding doors that disappear into the walls. The “beautiful pocket doors”, however, won’t slide open. Liv gives a honk while attempting to slide the right door into its pocket. She then gives a giggle as if to say, ”This is just the life of me, Liv Tyler, always surrounded by beautiful not working pocket doors.”
When she says everything looks like it had always been there
“So it looks like everything has always been here,” she says, breathless. “But actually it wasn’t. There was nothing here.” There’s a level of astonishment to this statement, as if Liv is surprised herself that the house she bought and gutted didn’t come complete with her beloved pocket doors, flawless white walls, shag pile rug and velvet baby blue armchairs. “All of this stuff is new,” she says, gesturing not just to the architecture but to her books and tchotchkes. Can you believe it?
The tiny piano
There’s not too much to say about this apart from the fact that while filming her house tour, Liv Tyler clearly just wanted to bend down and bash on her tiny piano.
The trinkets she collects (mini pig figures, cookie jars, typewriters)
Liv Tyler has a bunch of weird stuff in her house. But like a child whose favourite toy is not an action figure or doll but actually a plate with pasta stuck on it, she’s super excited and proud of them. When she pulls out one of the cookie jars she collects (in the shape of an owl, we should add), there’s such glee. Likewise, the various clearly defunct typewriters dotted around her house clearly spark joy, too. When she tickles the keys of her pink one, her smile is infectious. Unfortunately the the miniature pig figures on her mantelpiece don’t elicit quite the same reaction.
Her obsession with her landline
If you owned a huge brownstone in the middle of New York City, what would your favourite part be? Liv Tyler seems to think that the best thing about owning a house is still having a landline. Truly, she loves her landline. She loves it so much that she stops to show it off. What’s weird is the landline actually looks more like an entryphone system than an actual telephone. Nevertheless, Liv grasps the landline with more affection than anything else in her house. The landline is everything. “Most people don’t have it anymore,” she gasps, “but I’m never letting it go!”
When she says people knock on the window instead of the front door
Liv Tyler is clearly not fussed about security. In fact, so unbothered is she that instead of having people announce themselves at her home via the front door, she just lets them tap on the window. Climbing on a humongous red sofa, she pulls apart (flimsy) net curtains — something she admits she does “all the time” — to knock on her window in demonstration.
Her sword
After dragging the cameraman down to her basement (Liv’s “favourite” part of her multi-million dollar abode), she then takes them into the attic space, mainly to show off her Lord of the Rings figurines (yes really). But her LoTR memorabilia doesn’t end there. Dragging out a box, Liv pulls out an ACTUAL SWORD. The weapon, a recreation of the one she wielded during her turn as the elf Arwen during Peter Jackson’s fantasy film trilogy, looks a bit dusty, but as Liv informs us, she hasn’t been applying the oil needed to keep it in pristine condition. Putting the sword away, she says with a slight laugh, “We need to hangout in my attic more often.” It’s unclear at this stage whether this is a threat or an invitation.