Liv Tyler was on The Tonight Show last night to promote her upcoming films The Strangers and The Incredible Hulk. The soft-spoken 30 year-old actress first talked about her name, Liv. She said it’s Norwegian and that her mother got the idea for the name by seeing actor Liv Ullmann on a TV Guide cover. She counts “liver lips” among her nicknames as a child.

She also discussed her mom and dad and her nontraditional childhood. Leno asked how her dad, Aeorosmith frontman Steven Tyler, was doing and she said he’s fine, and joked that her dad says that fine means “f’ed up, insecure, neurotic and emotional.” They spoke briefly about her father’s foot surgery but the fact that he was in rehab to supposedly recover from surgery was not mentioned. Liv called her mother’s 70s spread in Playboy artistic, and told a story about how she was embarrassed as a child by being dropped off at school by her mother, who wore flashy 70s club clothing.

On her sexy appearance in her dad’s video at age 16
Leno then broached the subject of Liv’s controversial appearance at the age of 16 in her father’s video “Crazy,” in which she played a teen who ran off with a friend, played by Alicia Silverstone, and ends up dancing in a strip club and scamming a guy out of his car. It includes many suggestive scenes and hints that Alicia and Liv’s characters have a sexual relationship. Liv said her dad was shocked at first when he saw the video:

“It’s funny because I was with him for the first time when he saw the video… he was a little bit shocked because there was sort of lesbian ideas going on… he wanted some things taken out. I remember that.”

Liv didn’t specify if her dad got her way and if anything was removed, but the resulting video was certainly controversial enough for 1994.

Leno asked if her dad ever gave her advice or sat her down for the “the talk,” and she said they talk about health and diet, and that he taught her how to make breakfast smoothies. She also told a funny story about how her dad made her floss her teeth as a child and then smell the food that was stuck in her mouth. She says she flosses daily now.

On splitting her pants while filming
After the break she told a funny story about splitting her pants while filming The Incredible Hulk:

“I wear the same outfit for the whole movie, a pair of really tight jeans. There was a scene where a helicopter crashes, and I have to pull William Hurt’s character out of the wreckage. So, I’m crouched down as low as I can get and I’m pulling this huge man out. Then, the director says cut, and I go outside for a quick break, and I can feel this cold draft. I reach around, and I find a foot-long rip, little g-string poking out, a white butt-cheek, everything. It was a very humbling experience.” [Transcript thanks to Splash News]

Here are the videos.

Liv Tyler on Leno – Part 1

Liv Tyler on Leno – Part 2

Liv Tyler is shown at the MTV Movie Awards on 6/1/08, thanks to WENN.