The actor Elizabeth Olsen, 35, and I are in a London hotel, staring down at her dinner. She lifts the lid from one plate: a bowl of plain black beans.
The actor Elizabeth Olsen, 35, and I are in a London hotel, staring down at her dinner. She lifts the lid from one plate: a bowl of plain black beans. She lifts another: a bowl of similarly spare couscous. You wouldn’t know it, but Olsen is something of a foodie. She takes a set of knives around the world when filming, makes her own ricotta, knows what brand of caviar is best, and records the name of every restaurant she visits. She’s been engaged for years in an LA “croissant crawl” to find the best French pastry in the city, though she takes the hunt international every chance she gets. This past week she’s eaten a huge amount of red meat, she tells me, and developed high cholesterol as a result. Hence the simple grain and pulse dishes before her. Carefully she returns the lids. Then she says, “I am probably not going to eat while we talk.”
In person, Olsen manages the curious combination of being at once unnerving and disarming. Those wide eyes – so expressive and searching on screen – would be unsettling if it weren’t for her easy wit. It’s the eyes that Hollywood has latched on to: they have been deployed to reveal the trauma of an ex-cult member (her indie breakout Martha Marcy May Marlene), a wife in a loveless marriage driven to murder (Love & Death), a grieving widow (Sorry For Your Loss). As Wanda Maximoff, appearing in the Marvel films that have dominated her last decade, her eyes have been used to portray a virtual assault course of loss.
Olsen’s latest film is a Netflix indie, His Three Daughters, which sees her back in grief mode as Christina, one of three estranged sisters (the others are played by Natasha Lyonne and Carrie Coon) who reunite at their ailing father’s apartment to await his death. “I mean, I feel like these are the characters I’m drawn to,” Olsen says, of portraying grief-stricken women. “But this is different, right? I felt like Christina was someone soft, someone I haven’t really explored before. I usually try – especially recently – to find characters that seem adjacent but different to me.”
His Three Daughters can be painful to watch, particularly if you have lost someone recently. It explores how siblings often revert to childhood roles when they are together as adults. But it also makes known the terrible admin of death: the banality of being put on hold on different phones, of concluding someone’s life via paperwork, the Do Not Resuscitate form reduced to the world of the tax return.
Olsen’s Christina is the most balanced of the sisters and we see her using breathing exercises and meditation to find calm. It’s something Olsen can relate to. She suffered extreme bouts of anxiety and panic attacks in her 20s. “I’ve gone through phases of it,” she says, of using meditation. “Figuring out what works for me, or what works enough. No one talked about panic attacks in the mid-2000s. I thought it meant you just write a list and check things off and get over it. I didn’t realise it was something you had no control over, but I had to figure out how to have some control.”
For years, though, Olsen stopped wearing heels: she realised the shoes brought on a feeling of vertigo, which in turn brought on the attacks. But heels are near-essential for actors appearing at public events like Q&As. For a while, she would wear them to walk on stage in front of an audience, before swiftly taking them off. “People thought it was a feminist choice,” she recalls. “Like, nah! If I wear them and I’m standing in front of you guys, I’m gonna panic. I’d rather have my feet on the ground.”
Olsen grew up in the LA suburb of Sherman Oaks. Her father, David, was a real-estate broker. Her mother, Jarnie, was an ex-dancer. As a child she was not a natural risk taker. Whenever she went to theme parks with friends, she would dutifully queue for rollercoasters with them, walk on to the ride and then straight off the other side, where she would wait until they were done. “I don’t like adrenaline,” she says. “I would tell my friends: if I’m on the rollercoaster, it’s gonna go wrong.” She had a nightmare recently that someone had tricked her on to one. “There was a loop,” she says gravely.
Her older sisters – twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen – became childhood stars, thanks to the TV sitcom Full House. She briefly tried to follow in their footsteps. She once appeared in Full House as the character “Girl with Flowers” – a cameo. And she was hired for a nascent ad about internet safety. But she was also interested by dance. When she had to choose between acting auditions and ballet, her father advised her to write a list of the pros and cons of acting. Too many cons, she discovered. Too many ballet classes missed. Ballet it was.
After graduating from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Olsen began acting in indie films and gaining a reputation for her subtlety and nuance. She has a BAFTA nomination for her supporting role in the 2009 film Peace, Love & Misunderstanding and won a Gotham Award for Best Breakthrough Performance.
In our conversation, Olsen talks candidly about her struggles with anxiety and panic attacks. She also discusses her fear of rollercoasters – and helicopters – and the way she has learned to manage her worries through breathing exercises and meditation.
Olsen secretly eloped with her long-term partner, the musician Robbie Arnett, in 2019. Her next film, The Assessment, is a dystopian drama about a couple whose fertility is assessed by the government. After that, she will star in a romantic comedy set in the afterlife, Eternity.
In the past decade, Olsen has become known for her versatility and range. She has played characters affected by trauma, grief, and loss, and has won critical acclaim for her performances. She is committed to using her platform to raise awareness about anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues.
Olsen grew up in a household with two famous sisters, twins Mary-Kate and Ashley, who became childhood stars thanks to the TV sitcom Full House. She started acting at a young age, appearing in Full House and later in various advertisements. However, she had a different path in mind and decided to pursue dance instead of acting.
After a short-lived stint in ballet school, Olsen began acting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and graduated with a degree in fine arts. She later honed her craft with roles in indie films like Peace, Love & Misunderstanding and Martha Marcy May Marlene. Her breakthrough role came when she played Wanda Maximoff in the Marvel film franchise.
When asked about her fashion style, Olsen mentions she’s a fan of mixing and matching different patterns, fabrics, and textures, as well as exploring high and low fashion. For her, fashion is all about expressing herself and standing out from the crowd while still being comfortable and effortless.
It seems that Olsen’s interests go beyond acting. In her free time, she enjoys exploring different hobbies such as photography, playing her guitar, and trying to learn new languages. The article concludes that Olsen has grown into a confident woman with a unique perspective, both on and off-screen.
FAQS:
* What is the main theme of the article?
The main theme is the life and career of actress Elizabeth Olsen, particularly her struggles with anxiety, panic attacks, and mental health.
* What has Olsen been doing to cope with her anxiety?
She has been using breathing exercises and meditation to manage her worries.
* What does Olsen think about wearing high heels?
She used to avoid wearing high heels due to her anxiety, preferring to wear flats instead.
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