in Stefanel dress
Despite the similarities, that’s neither Ashley nor Mary Kate — it’s 21-year-old Elizabeth Olsen who made her magazine debut in the upcoming “Discovery Issue” of V magazine.
Nominated by Chace Crawford — her co-star in indie flick Peace, Love & Misunderstanding — as Hollywood’s “New Ingenue”, Elizabeth is also on track to become as much of a fashion darling as her older sisters.
While we’d love to see her in some Rodarte and perhaps Prada, the question is: will she branch out or will she keep it all in the family, sticking with The Row and Elizabeth and James for press appearances? Considering how much the industry loves themselves a new starlet to fawn over (see Elle Fanning, Emma Watson), imagine Elizabeth would provide the kind of advertising even the Olsens’ money couldn’t buy.
V Magazine, on newsstands January 13th
“I love the Atlantic Theater Company,” is not the kind of thing you expect Elizabeth Olsen—younger sister to Mary-Kate and Ashley—to blurt out. Nor would you expect the 21-year-old actress to call you from the side of a highway in Sherman Oaks, pulled over in her mom’s Toyota. But the young Ms. Olsen is an impressive bundle of surprises. Unlike her famous child-actor sisters, this is her first real kick at the can. Instead of using their near-infinite connections, Olsen has taken the long road—studying acting, educating herself, working as an understudy. Her favorite Russian curse word is “Idi na khui,” which roughly translates to “Go to the penis!”
Olsen knows the Atlantic Theater Company (David Mamet and William H. Macy’s Chelsea theater and school) from studying acting at NYU—she’s still enrolled—during which time she has understudied roles on and off Broadway. As a kid in L.A., she did children’s theater and high school plays. She also played volleyball and danced, and let the professional acting wait “until [she] felt confident and comfortable.”
Before beginning to audition, Olsen was dedicated to honing her craft, seeking out training as far away as Russia, where she spent a semester last year, at Moscow’s Art Theatre School. “If I could live a parallel life, I would live in Russia,” she says. She dove into the Russian language and the country’s history of film and theater, learning Stanislavski-style acting techniques, acrobatics, and stage combat.
“The [stage combat] teacher and I got along even though he didn’t speak English,” Olsen says. “He was trying to demonstrate something and asked for a guy. I kind of scoffed and raised my hand, because he didn’t ask any of the chicks to volunteer. And we did this exercise where you have to block someone from slapping your head. It was funny, though, because he wasn’t letting me down easy; I actually had to work to avoid getting hit.”
Once she started trying out for parts, they came quickly. Olsen has three films under her belt in just a year. In the first, Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding, she plays alongside Catherine Keener, Jane Fonda, and Chace Crawford. “Catherine was a huge help to me,” says Olsen. “She taught me about making a movie because I had no idea.” For a particularly difficult scene, Keener came out to the set—she wasn’t even shooting that day—and took Olsen aside to calm her down, making her listen to music and just talking to her so she could get to a place where she could deliver the most honest performance.
The Silent House, which will follow, is a horror movie filmed in a single shot—a challenge to the most seasoned of actors. “That one is a funny movie—well not funny, because it’s horror—it’s basically just a camera and me. It was insane because if you get just one cue off the whole thing is blown.” Finally, she’s appearing in Martha Marcy May Marlene, an indie written and directed by T. Sean Durkin that will do the festival rounds
this year.
Despite a trio of such buzzworthy roles, Olsen remains much more interested in talking about the people she’s worked with than herself—another surprise. “What’s been most interesting is learning how other people work,” she says. “Because I’m learning how I work.”
