Wilde had writer Christopher Hitchens as a babysitter. She also studied acting at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, Ireland. She attended Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C., as well as Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, graduating in 2002. For a short time, Wilde's family had a house in Guilford, Vermont. She has wanted to become an actress since the age of two. Her mother once recounted a story of a four-year-old Wilde eavesdropping one night on a conversation between diplomat Richard Holbrooke and singer Mick Jagger, until Jagger noticed her and shooed her to bed. Both her parents were prominent in the Washington social scene, hosting dinner parties. Wilde has said that as a result of her parents' occupations, she has a 'strong journalistic streak,' being 'really critical and analytical. Wilde's ancestry includes English, Irish, Scottish, Manx, and German she is also of 1/64th Sephardi Jewish descent (from Spain and Portugal) through Ralph Bernal, a British Whig politician and actor. Wilde's father's ancestors include abolitionist and Anglican minister James Ramsay, politician George Arbuthnot, lawyer, judge, and literary figure Henry Cockburn, Lord Cockburn, Lord Provost of Edinburgh Sir William Arbuthnot, and Sir Thomas Osborne.

Wilde's father's upper-class British ancestors lived in several places at the height of British Empire, including Beijing (where her paternal grandfather was born), Kolkata, Mumbai, Cairo and Tasmania (one of her paternal great-great-grandfathers, Henry Arthur Blake, was Governor of Hong Kong). Her aunt, Sarah Caudwell, was a writer, and her paternal grandfather, Claud Cockburn, was a novelist and journalist. Wilde's older sister, Chloe Cockburn, is a civil rights attorney in New York. Her uncles, Alexander Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, also worked as journalists. Her father, Andrew Cockburn a journalist, was born in London to British parents but raised in Ireland. Her mother, Leslie Cockburn (née Redlich), is an American-born 60 Minutes producer and journalist.

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