Welcome to Elizabeth Olsen Source: your best source for all things related to Elizabeth Olsen. Elizabeth's breakthrough came in 2011 when she starred in critically-acclaimed movies Martha Marcy May Marlene and Silent House. She made her name in indie movies until her role in 2014 blockbuster Godzilla and then as Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff in Marvel's Avengersand Captain America movies. Elizabeth starred in and was an Executive Producer for Facebook Watch's "Sorry For Your Loss". She is currently starring in WandaVision, the first Marvel TV Series on Disney+. She will also be in Marvel's Dr. Strange sequel and hopefully we'll see another indie movie from her! Enjoy the many photos(including lots of exclusives!), articles, and videos on our site!
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Press: How ‘WandaVision’ Star Elizabeth Olsen Transformed Her Performance For Every Genre-Bending Episode

 

VARIETY: Elizabeth Olsen’s big-screen portrayal of Marvel’s Scarlett Witch led the franchise’s foray onto Disney Plus with the actor’s starring role for the small-screen series “WandaVision.”

The spinoff sees Olsen reprising her character alongside Paul Bettany’s Vision, as the duo is seemingly stuck inside various classic sitcoms, seemingly unaware as to how they got there or why. Each episode jumps into a new decade stuffed with sitcom-centric characters, clothes and gags. But the real treat is how Olsen seamlessly leaps from Mary Tyler Moore housewife to “Brady Bunch” channeling lead.

Here, Variety talks with Olsen to breakdown her process of decade leaping acting, and uncover everything she learned at the “sitcom bootcamp.”

How soon after shooting ‘Endgame’ did Marvel reveal they wanted to make a TV show about Wanda and Vision?

“Infinity War” had just come out and we were picking up what we didn’t film for “Endgame” because filmed them at the same time. I was in LA and Kevin Feige asked me to come in for a meeting. He and Louis D’Esposito let me know that Disney Plus was launching — and they’re giving Marvel the opportunity to bring some of the MCU onto the streaming service. That kind of freaked me out because I’m so used to these characters being on huge group experiences. To think about these characters being morphed to a small TV screen kind of freaked me out, because they’re larger than life characters; they’re superheroes. So that was intimidating, but that’s when Kevin told me his nucleus of the idea [for “WandaVision”]. They wanted to tell the story of Wanda and Vision living in the suburbs, through the guise of American sitcoms and have this “Twilight Zone-y” aspect to it. I thought that was awesome. I was excited by that and intimidated. I’m used to being able to dissolve into an ensemble in these movies. It’s kind of scary to step up in that way, but most things that are scary are worth it.

I understand that you went through a kind of sitcom boot camp prior to shooting, what specific things did you pick up doing that?

We really tried to make everything very era-specific. For me [it was about] just trusting the hair; the makeup; the costumes; Jess Hall, our [director of photography], with his lenses and his lighting. I was responsible for my voice, my diction, my posture and moving through space. It’s all the geeky things like, what part of your voice are women speaking from? What is the rhythm and the pattern and the diction of the language of speech? It’s getting into that mode, which isn’t specific to the time it’s specific to the sitcoms of the time. Which was really fun, because it’s not a grounded thing. It’s something that you’re kind of allowing yourself to send up, which you feels wrong as an actor, but feel so good.

What was the difference between what you did the ’50s, versus when you were in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s?

The ’70s women were allowed — it was almost like there is was a relaxation of women and social behavior, and so that would affect their voices and the tone that they can take. Instead of it being kind of a higher and level [like in the ’50s]. The ’70s, even though it’s this really strange “Brady Bunch” aspirational time in sitcom land, women were able to have a bit more control, something that grounded them a bit more in their voice. Then as we got into the ’80s, there were the teachable moments, and how sincere everything was, that was really funny. And then as we move into the arts and into the ’00s and the 2010s, the sitcom becomes really cynical. The humor, like “Malcolm in the Middle” and “Modern Family” becomes incredibly cynical. And that’s what we found comforting for whatever reason as a society.

It was fun when we were in this boot camp to not only chart the physical changes, as tools, but to also [discover] what comedy was for that time. “Rosemary’s Baby” is a film and “Brady Bunch” is on television, it doesn’t make any sense to me. But for whatever reason, that’s what that’s what the consumer was watching at home.

How do you keep a hold on who Wanda is with such a wide range of experience of literal places that she’s in and the story she’s telling?

You just trust the writing. This character — her core, central life is the life experience we’ve watched her have through the films. It’s a lot of trauma, processing and resenting of her own abilities and her powers. We’re just putting a shade or cloth over that. [“WandaVision”] is her trying to not be found out in the suburbs, but she’s also in a sitcom. So she’s playing the part as best she can, as well. It’s not the exact, same thread from Ultron. This woman is doing the best she can in this sitcom.

The thing that was fun for me as an actor in the show was when the sitcom and what we know of the MCU [came together] — the tension that’s pulled between the two of them. You’re just kind of peeling away and revealing bits, but you’re not revealing everything. Living in that tension throughout this whole series was my playground.

This shows Wanda in a way that she never was in the movies. And for the first time, she’s being written largely by women, how has that affected the character?

This whole show feels very female. And in a really guttural, pelvic floor way. I told Kathryn [Hahn] that she was the pelvic floor of our show. Because she’s just such a solid person in who she is and what she brings. I do feel that in our show and in the way we tell our story.

I don’t want to take away from all the men that were on our show, but we did have this very feminine energy of large collaboration, large teamwork, lots of dialogue, lots of open communication, lots of feedback. Which I think, generally speaking, one would say maybe is more feminine and masculine, which is a complete generalization [and] I know that.

But that was the tone of our show. And that is how we always worked through our days and how we worked through a year of working. It was 110 days of a shoot, I think. We always had that open communication dialogue from the from the boot camp until our last days on set to even in post-production.

“WandaVision” streams new episodes Fridays on Disney Plus.

January 17 2021
Press/Video: Elizabeth Olsen Confirms that Wanda Still Has a Sokovian Accent (& Explains Why You Don’t Hear It)

 

COLLIDER: When we first met Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff in Avengers: Age of Ultron (after the Captain America: The Winter Soldier tease), she had a pretty heavy Sokovian accent. After all, Wanda and her twin brother Pietro (Aaron Taylor Johnson) grew up there. However, when we reunite with the character in Avengers: Infinity War, that accent is gone!

While making the press rounds for Infinity War back in 2018, Wanda’s vanishing accent was a mighty hot topic of conversation with Joe and Anthony Russo explaining that they intentionally stripped Wanda of her accent for two main reasons:

“One is you’ll notice at the beginning of Civil War that Black Widow is training her to be a spy, and two is she’s been on the run, and one of the most distinguishing characteristics that she has is her accent.”

That reasoning does make enough sense, but because most of Wanda’s scenes in Infinity War are just with Vision (Paul Bettany), one could assume what they really meant was, “We just decided to ditch it!” But, on a recent episode of Collider Ladies Night, Olsen actually confirmed that that’s not the case at all. Wanda’s accent disappeared with purpose and also – it’s not totally gone. Here’s how she put it:

“So, the Sokovia accent was created by me and Aaron and our dialect coach because it’s a fake country and we could find different sources of Slavic sounds. And we wanted to make sure it didn’t sound Russian because Black Widow speaks Russian, and so we just needed to sound more like Slovakian. So we created these sound changes that worked for Aaron’s British accent going to Slovakia basically and my American accent so that we sounded related. And then all of a sudden, all these different characters had to speak it in different films. [Laughs] So the Sokovian accent took a lot of time. It hasn’t gone anywhere. There have been reasons for everything. It lightened up when she started living in the States, and in WandaVision she is playing the role of being in an American sitcom and so it’s not gone. It is absolutely still there.”

Does this mean we could see (hear?) the return of Wanda’s Sokovian accent? This tease from Olsen is making me think that’s it’s a real possibility! Olsen did also tell us that Wanda is essentially a blank slate at the beginning of WandaVision and that “the show is what starts to inform the characters of other things as it keeps going.” Maybe one of those “other things” will be her Sokovian accent.

 

January 17 2021
Press/Video: “WandaVision”- Elizabeth Olsen On Scarlet Witch’s Family and Evolution

COMICBOOK.COM: WandaVision is going to take a deeper look at its titular characters, Wanda Maximoff and The Vision, than the Marvel Cinematic Universe has done to this point. The characters have appeared in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and one went on for Avengers: Endgame. Despite so many appearances by Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany in these roles, audiences have barely “scratched the surface” on these characters according to WandaVision director Matt Shakman. Now, Olsen has opened up about what some extra time with and evolution of Wanda Maximoff will mean for the Marvel character.

“I know what it means,” Olsen told Comicbook.com in the interview seen in the video above, responding to what it means for Wanda to become a full-on Scarlet Witch. “I do think it is, it’s almost like it’s when I say coming of age story for her, it’s more like coming up of a woman age story. Like you know, you start to come to terms with your past and who you are and take accountability for things and kind of coming to terms with yourself. I’ll say.”

Wanda’s lineage in Marvel Comics adds more importance to her in the Marvel Universe, in addition to being a powerful and integral character on her own. In the books, she is the daughter of X-Men legend Magneto and sister to Quicksilver, with only one of those relationships ringing true in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so far. As for whether or not those family ties will become an issue, “I don’t know,” Olsen says, simply.

Still, family is definitely going to be an issue for Wanda, as the character will be welcoming her own children to the world in WandaVision. “I think as much as I can understand parenting you would do anything to protect your family and your children,” Olsen says. “I think what it does bring up for her is this reflection of her own experiences from when she was a child and her you know, throughout her family.” It’s a “tough background,” as Olsen calls it, one which has seen Wanda Maximoff lose just about everyone she as loved throughout her MCU tenure (her parents, her brother, her Vision).

Not only did Olsen channel the evolution of Wanda’s tragic story, she also had to do so under a guise of existing in a sitcom which pays honest homage to different eras of such television shows. “It was so nerve-racking and there was a lot of adrenaline, a lot of quick changes, and it totally confused my brain,” Olsen said of shooting in front of a live audience. “I was really grateful when we added the fourth wall!” It took her a minute to understand how to not perform for the audience but feed off of their energy. “I think it was an amalgamation of Mary Tyler Moore and Elizabeth Montgomery and I think I threw in some Lucy in the 70s because there was a good bit of physical comedy.”

Are you excited for WandaVision? Share your thoughts in the comment section or send them my way on Instagram!

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WandaVision premieres its first two episodes on Disney+ this Friday.

January 13 2021
Press/Video: WandaVision channels Bewitched in new Marvel series clip

Elizabeth Olsen also confirmed filming on the Doctor Strange sequel has been delayed.

 

EW = Elizabeth Olsen can’t share much about her new show WandaVision that hasn’t already been revealed. You know the drill. It’s Marvel. But she did bring a clip with her for Jimmy Kimmel Live this week to show how the Disney+ series will pay homage to classic TV like Bewitched and The Dick Van Dyke Show.

WandaVision, the first TV series in this new Phase Four era for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, sees Wanda Maximoff (Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) living out their suburban dreams, but something is off. Their reality seems like it’s straight out of a television show — multiple shows, in fact — and it’s constantly shifting.

According to Olsen, the episodes of WandaVision start in the style of 1950s television like The Dick Van Dyke Show and progress to each decade of sitcoms. The clip shared on Kimmel shows off the ’60s era, a la Bewitched, when Wanda responds to a noise in the night. “We tried to film each episode as authentically as we could to each decade,” Olsen said, noting how the show filmed in front of a live studio audience for the earlier episodes and used “practical special effects on strings.”

WandaVision will lead directly into the events of the movie Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Olsen is currently in London for production on the film, but she confirmed to Kimmel that filming had to take a hiatus due to the most recent lockdown in the U.K. “Since the hospitals are overwhelmed here we can’t go back to work until that calms down,” the actress said. “So, just safely hanging out here and really grateful that I get to be working.”

WandaVision premieres on Disney+ this Jan. 15.

 

January 07 2021
Press: Honey, I’m Chrome: Marvel prepares to take over TV with WandaVision

The upcoming Disney+ series is a wonderfully weird send-up of sitcoms of the past — and Marvel’s key to the future. Don’t touch that dial.

 

EW – Last year, the notoriously secretive Marvel Studios did something unprecedented: It opened its set to visitors. WandaVision, the six-hour series about Elizabeth Olsen’s reality-altering witch and Paul Bettany’s charming android, takes inspiration from beloved TV comedies, from campy 1950s classics to the zany family shows of the ’90s. So for its premiere episode, Marvel’s first Disney+ TV show went full midcentury sitcom, filming in classic black and white in front of a live studio audience (all of whom signed very, very strict NDAs).

Crew members came to set in ’50s-era clothing, and used period lenses and lighting to capture that dreamy vintage glow. The special-effects team employed wires and camera tricks straight from Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie, making wine bottles appear to pour on their own and household appliances zoom about like magic. And when Vision’s familiar maroon skin didn’t look quite right in grayscale, the makeup artists painted Bettany blue instead.

Bettany and Olsen rehearsed their entrances and exits as if putting on a play, and at first, they say the notion of live performance terrified them more than any Marvel supervillain. But by the time they secured their first audience chuckle, the pair realized they might have missed their calling as sitcom stars. “It was insanity,” Olsen, 31, says with a laugh. “There was something very meta for my own life because I would visit those tapings as a kid, where my sisters were working [on Full House].”

“We were all so high by the end of it, we wanted to keep on running the show,” Bettany, 49, adds. “Maybe take it out on tour or something. WandaVision on ice.”

November 11 2020
Press: Elizabeth Olsen on Grief, the Scarlet Witch and Her Next Life

The actress talks about juggling “Sorry For Your Loss” with the Marvel juggernaut, while dreaming up her next great adventures.

 

NY Times – One weekend about four years ago, Elizabeth Olsen found herself in the enviable position of having a pile of scripts to read. Just barely into her career — not counting childhood cameos alongside her older sisters, Mary-Kate and Ashley — she’d already raked in indie accolades for “Martha Marcy May Marlene” and ascended into the Marvel universe as Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch.

But something about Kit Steinkellner’s pilot for “Sorry for Your Loss,” and the role of Leigh Shaw, a young widow mourning the death of her husband, who either fell off a cliff or jumped, captivated her.

“I was doing a bunch of stuff that felt outside of myself, and I really wanted to be a part of something that’s a little bit more close to home,” Olsen said. Better yet, it came with an offer to be an executive producer.

“Sorry for Your Loss” quickly evolved into a critical darling, with James Poniewozik of The New York Times calling it a “quiet gem.” Season 2, now on Facebook Watch, picks up six months after the death of her husband (Mamoudou Athie, still present in flashbacks) as Leigh moves forward with baby steps: getting his comic book published posthumously, skipping grief group to have sex with her Postmates delivery guy. Then there’s the disconcerting fact that her husband’s brother (Jovan Adepo) has fallen in love with her.

Perhaps because of her paparazzi-hounded siblings, celebrity has never been a pursuit for Olsen, 30, who muses about the children she hopes to have with her fiancé, Robbie Arnett of the band Milo Greene.

“I never wanted to have a certain amount of power in the industry,” she said. “I really do love my job, and I’m happy doing just that and the charity I do, and being as private as possible.”

These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Grief isn’t something most of us long to confront. So why can’t we turn away from Leigh and her story?

I think going through grief, whether it’s losing a parent or a spouse or a best friend, is a really isolating experience. And I feel like we try and be as authentic to the truth as possible. We also try to handle mental illness and addiction the same way. For a show like ours to hopefully make people not feel alone and to feel seen, that’s a special experience. And the thing that’s been interesting with Facebook is that there’s a built-in community for people, if they want it.

Is there any particular experience you find yourself drawing on to tap into her grief?

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October 13 2019
Press: Elizabeth Olsen Shared Details About “WandaVision”

 

 

Gallery Links:

STUDIO PHOTOSHOOTS > 2019 > SESSION 008

PUBLIC APPEARANCES > 2019 > OCT 10: BUZZ FEED’ S AM TO DM

 

Buzz Feed – Attention, Marvel fans: Elizabeth Olsen is on board with the idea of an all-women superhero movie.

Olsen, who plays Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, told BuzzFeed News’ AM to DM morning show that such a movie would have a “huge impact.”

“I think people really love these characters,” she said. “I feel like all the men in Marvel movies have done such a brilliant job with satisfying a lot of things our audiences want, and they’re funny and they’re talented. And so are all the women. And to give them more screentime, I think, would be a huge impact because comics aren’t just for boys who want to watch big boys.”

Fans were thrilled by a scene from Avengers: Endgame in which all the Marvel women joined forces to protect the Infinity Gauntlet.

So it won’t come as too much of a surprise that Brie Larson, aka Captain Marvel, told Variety earlier this week the idea of an all-women movie had been “truly discussed” at the highest levels of Marvel.

“I will say that a lot of the female cast members from Marvel walked up to [Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige] and we were like, ‘We are in this together, we want to do this,’” Larson told Variety, adding: “You know, I’m not in charge of the future of Marvel, but it is something that we’re really passionate about and we love and I feel like if enough people out in the world talk about how much they want it, maybe it’ll happen.”

Olsen said it’s important that Marvel makes films to cater to its diverse fanbase — which includes many women. “Especially when you go to conventions, you really see that,” she said.
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October 13 2019
Press/Video: Elizabeth Olsen auditioned for ‘Game of Thrones’ but forgot because ‘it was horrible’

 

USA Today – Elizabeth Olsen stopped by “Live with Kelly and Ryan” on Thursday and told the hosts she auditioned for the role of Khaleesi and forgot she even tried out for the role because the experience just went so terribly.

“I also forgot that I auditioned for it,” the “Avengers” star said. “Someone had asked about a terrible audition experience – a journalist, not a good time to remember something like that, and I was like, ‘I actually really love auditioning; I can’t really think of anything, and I was like, ‘Oh! Right! I auditioned for “Game of Thrones.'”

Olsen shared she was reading with the casting director because no one else was available, and she was auditioning the scene where Khaleesi gets burned alive.

“That was the furthest I ever got. It was that bad,” Olsen said.

Kelly Ripa asked the actress if she knows when an audition is going bad.

“It was horrible,” Olsen explained. “This is uncomfortable for me. I’m sure it’s awkward for her, like no one’s going to enjoy this experience.”

Olsen said now she would just tell the casting director if she was having a rough audition rather than going through the whole process. She also noted that even when she gets offered roles, she still asks to audition just to feel out the “vibe.”

October 13 2019
Press: Elizabeth Olsen Opens Up for Who What Wear’s September Cover

 

Gallery Links:

 

WHAT WHEN WEAR: A loose linen blouse. An untouched plate of madeleines. An empty French bistro in the Valley on a Tuesday at 4 p.m. These are the poised circumstances under which I spend an afternoon attempting to better understand one of Hollywood’s most discreet young celebrities: Elizabeth Olsen.

The 30-year-old actress’s identity doesn’t seem like it would lend itself to much mystery. Since 2014, Olsen has starred as the Scarlet Witch in Marvel’s superhero movie franchise—one of the most-watched film series in entertainment history. (This summer’s Avengers: Endgame quickly became the second-highest-grossing movie of all time.) It’s a role she’ll reprise later with WandaVision, a Disney+ spin-off series about her superhero character coming spring 2021. In the meantime, Olsen executive produces and stars in Sorry for Your Loss, a drama series following Olsen as Leigh, a young widow struggling to deal with the sudden loss of her husband. (The show airs on Facebook Watch, and its second season premieres October 1.) By any objective measure, business is booming for Olsen, the younger sibling of Ashley and Mary-Kate, who long ago reached a level of fame so behemoth they no longer need a last name. The Olsens are as much American royalty as the Kennedys or the Rockefellers. I should know everything about Elizabeth Olsen.

And yet, as soon as she walks through the door of Petit Trois (the setting she chose for our interview) and introduces herself to me, it sinks in how little I do know. “I’m Lizzie,” she says with a jumpy half-hug, half-handshake—though the awkwardness is entirely my fault. I’m caught off guard that the young starlet lives just outside of L.A., around the corner from where she grew up (I would have pegged her for more of a hip Eastside girl), and I never knew she went by the cozy nickname. “Thanks for coming to the Valley,” she says, smiling.

Following behind two heavy-hitting child stars turned esoteric fashion moguls, Olsen, who decided at a young age to pursue a career in acting (and obtained a degree in it from NYU), had prodigious shoes to fill. Her on-screen breakout, a critically lauded lead in the 2011 Sundance hit Martha Marcy May Marlene, suggested that Olsen would be taking a cleverly divergent route from her older sisters—one of a risk-taking indie cinema darling. Some of her filmography still reflects that identity—roles in quirky small-budget dramedies like 2012’s Liberal Arts and 2017’s Ingrid Goes West.

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September 06 2019