Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

VANITY FAIR – After a decade of unprecedented success, Marvel Studios is at a pivotal moment: the looming farewell to some of its founding superheroes, and the rise of a new generation. Kevin Feige, the creative force behind the $13 billion franchise and a slew of Marvel stars, discusses its precarious beginnings, stumbles, and ever-expanding empire.

On a sweltering October weekend, the largest-ever group of Marvel superheroes and friends gathered just outside of Atlanta for a top-secret assignment. Eighty-three of the famous faces who have brought Marvel’s comic-book characters to life over the past decade mixed and mingled—Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk, bonded with Vin Diesel, the voice of Groot, the monosyllabic sapling from Guardians of the Galaxy. Angela Bassett, mother to Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther, flew through hurricane-like conditions to report for duty alongside Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Brie Larson, Paul Rudd, Jeremy Renner, Laurence Fishburne, and Stan Lee, the celebrated comic-book writer and co-creator of Iron Man, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men.

Their mission: to strike a heroic pose to commemorate 10 years of unprecedented moviemaking success. Marvel Studios, which kicked things off with Iron Man in 2008, has released 17 films that collectively have grossed more than $13 billion at the global box office; 5 more movies are due out in the next two years. The sprawling franchise has resuscitated careers (Downey), has minted new stars (Tom Hiddleston), and increasingly attracts an impressive range of A-list talent, from art-house favorites (Benedict Cumberbatch and Tilda Swinton in Doctor Strange) to Hollywood icons (Anthony Hopkins and Robert Redford) to at least three handsome guys named Chris (Hemsworth, Evans, and Pratt). The wattage at the photo shoot was so high that Ant-Man star Michael Douglas—Michael Douglas!—was collecting autographs. (Photographer Jason Bell shot Vanity Fair’s own Marvel portfolio shortly afterward.)

But it wasn’t Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury or even Chris Evans’s Captain America who assembled Earth’s mightiest heroes. They came for Kevin Feige, the unassuming man in a black baseball cap who took Marvel Studios from an underdog endeavor with a roster of B-list characters to a cinematic empire that is the envy of every other studio in town. Feige’s innovative, comic-book-based approach to blockbuster moviemaking—having heroes from one film bleed into the next—has changed not only the way movies are made but also pop culture at large. Fans can’t get enough of a world where space-hopping Guardians of the Galaxy might turn up alongside earthbound Avengers, or Doctor Strange and Black Panther could cross paths via a mind-bending rift in the space-time continuum. Other studios, most notably Warner Bros., with the Justice League, have tried to create their own web of interconnected characters. Why have so many failed to achieve Marvel’s heights? “Simple,” said Joe Russo, co-director of Avengers 3 and 4. “They don’t have a Kevin.”

Read the rest of this entry

Filed under: Avengers: Infinity War, Press

December 02 2017

0 comments

Press: Upcoming TV Appearances for Elizabeth!

LIVE WITH KELLY AND RYAN, syndicated

Tue 8/1: Idris Elba, Elizabeth Olsen, guest co-host Carrie Ann Inaba

BUILD, website

Wed 8/2: Jeremy Renner, Elizbeth Olsen

THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT, CBS

Thu 8/3: Anthony Mackie, Elizabeth Olsen, Arcade Fire

Filed under: Press, Talk Show Appearance

August 01 2017

0 comments

Press: ‘Wind River’ Interview at Cannes

DEADLINE – This is the third year in a row that Taylor Sheridan has a film in Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival. But the Sicario and Hell Or High Water writer is making his Croisette debut as director with Wind River. An unfinished version of the timely thriller centered around the continued injustice toward Native Americans premiered at Sundance in January. Its final cut premiered in Un Certain Regard here to a lengthy standing ovation.

The story follows a game tracker (Jeremy Renner) and an FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) who go on a manhunt for the murderer of a Native American teenage girl on Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation.

Deadline’s Pete Hammond has said the movie “features the best Jeremy Renner performance in years.” And, in the video above, Renner says this is a meaningful film for him. “I’m deeply connected to it… and you know, I don’t have to talk about just a bow and arrow,” he laughs, referencing his Hawkeye role in the Avengers movies. He adds, seriously, “I can talk about something that does mean something to me as a man, as a father, as an actor, a lot of things.”

Read the rest of this entry

Filed under: Press, Wind River

June 04 2017

0 comments

Meet Hollywood’s Loveliest Underdog

VOGUE – Many might think that Elizabeth Olsen’s stunning turn on the red carpet in London earlier this week was the work of someone who is used to securing the next-day’s headlines, but for the star herself, the whole “dressing sexy” experience is a relatively new one.

“I’m on this trajectory right now where I’m thinking, ‘Lizzie you can be sexier!’ I have always wanted to be conservative,” Olsen told us on the morning of said red-carpet outing for the premiere of the new Avengers film, Captain America: Civil War. Olsen reprises her role as Wanda Maximoff (or Scarlet Witch) for the third time. Pointing out that she was wearing a mini skirt for our meeting, she assured us that it was a first. “I don’t think I’ve ever worn a mini skirt before!” she laughed. “I would normally wear pants and blouse, but it’s not like it’s offensive – and my version of what I think dressing sexy is like is definitely not offensive!”

Sexy aside, the actress is worth more to her movie producers than the inadvertent promotion she gives them. Sweet, articulate and instantly likeable, Olsen has that rare quality that makes her endearing to indie-film audiences but accessible enough to take on massive franchises like Marvel. She does, however, give the post-shoot side of things more thought than many would think a young actress might.

“The weirdest thing as an actor to me is that when you’re on set, there are so many crucial people that work there,” she said earnestly. “Like, if your focus puller had something out of focus, that’s incredible important! You really need all these people, yet as an actor you’re there representing hundreds on the crew, a huge cast, all the people that deal with post production and that handle all the special effects being the face of it all – that’s weird! There are so many people that need credit.”

Olsen isn’t someone who talks about herself in grandiose terms and self-promoting clichés – on the contrary. She laughs and blushes when told she is one of the most famous actresses of her generation (“I don’t feel that way, that’s funny to say,” she smiles) and doesn’t think of herself as one of the most attractive either.

Read the rest of this entry

Filed under: Interviews, Press

May 01 2016

0 comments

Elizabeth Olsen Hopes to ‘Defend’ Audrey Williams in ‘I Saw the Light’

THE BOOT – Playing Audrey Williams in the upcoming Hank Williams‘ biopic, I Saw the Light, proved challenging for Elizabeth Olsen. The actress admits that it was tough to know how to best portray the complexity of the country icon’s first wife, to whom he was married for seven years.

“I didn’t know much about Hank and Audrey. I knew who Hank Williams was, [but] I didn’t know who Audrey was until I read the script,” Olsen tells The Boot. “So before doing any research, you just see the relationship on the page, which was a woman who, on the surface, it seems like she’s difficult. She’s demanding, and she has an ego, and it blows up his ego, and she’s stubborn and manipulative.”

However, it only took one read through the script, written by director Marc Abraham, to convince Olsen to take on the role. And when she signed on, Olsen explains, her goal became to “defend” Audrey Williams.

“I read it and felt really sorry for her, and I felt like she had a very difficult situation …,” Olsen says. “Even though there aren’t certain things that I agree with that she fought for, that she fought about, I at least tried to find out why, or what that motivation is.

“I think if you can see two sides of the equation, it makes for a much more interesting dynamic between relationships, or in a film or in drama,” Olsen continues. “I just tried to defend her as much as possible so people could care for her, because in history, people kind of give her a hard time.”

Olsen spent months before filming began doing research, looking wherever she could to find as much information as possible about Audrey Williams.

“The internet has kind of an okay amount of things about Audrey. The documentary that the BBC did about Hank was very helpful, because they do a lot of interviews with people who knew her. So you get to hear how people hear stories about her, which they laugh about how difficult she was, and there are also reportings of interviews she’s done about Hank, in her older age after he passed. And then I also got a good bit from the Country Music Hall of Fame, where they just finished doing a Hank Williams exhibit last year when we were here,” Olsen notes. “… I got to see a lot of personal journals and writing and her business work.

“She was a business woman. She was circling all the top charts: ‘… and here’s Hank, and here’s someone singing one of Hank’s songs,’” Olsen adds. “They’re divorced, and she’s still circling, and it’s all in a big scrapbook.”

Audrey Williams aspired to be a singer as well. Although she lacked her husband’s talent and charisma, in I Saw the Light, Williams spends time alternating between trying to make herself be heard and being angry that Hank Williams’ career is taking off while hers is stagnant. For Olsen, the mediocre singing was perhaps the most arduous part of the role.

“I’m not saying I sing great. I do have vocal control. I know what flat is, I know what sharp is, and I do know how to crack my voice. Those techniques, you learn,” Olsen admits. “So it was a really fun play with Rodney [Crowell], and to try to figure out to the astute musical ear what sounds bad enough, but maybe to the everyday man, it’s not that bad. Because you can’t make her look like an insane person for thinking that she can [sing], and you don’t want to make him look like an insane person [for thinking she can’t], so you try to strike a balance there.

“… Anytime I got Rodney Crowell to laugh, I was like, ‘Great! Let’s stick with that one,’” she says.

I Saw the Light, which also stars Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams, is set for release on March 25 in New York City, Los Angeles and Nashville, and on April 1 nationwide.

Filed under: I Saw The Light, Interviews, Press

March 19 2016

0 comments

NYFW: Did Elizabeth Olsen’s Ponytail Inspire The Runway Hair At SUNO?

Velvet-wrapped ponytails popped up on the models at Suno’s fall 2016 show.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER – Much like the topknot and the hun (half-up bun), it appears the velvet-wrapped ponytail could be the latest hashtag-able hairdo. While Vogue.com declared “Suno Just Solved Your Date-Night Hair Situation: Meet the Velvet-Wrapped Ponytail,” the look isn’t entirely new.

French hairstylist Odile Gilbert created the look using Kerastase products for models walking the runway at Suno’s fall 2016 show — and she also created velvet-wrapped chignons for the models three years ago at Monique Lhuillier’s fall 2013 show. But, the velveteen pony that had fashionistas in a frenzy at Suno was previously seen at a shoot last November for The Hollywood Reporter’s Beauty Issue.

“MONDAY MUSE: #ElizabethOlsen rocking an edgy, wrapped ponytail that @marktownsend1 created for #THRbeauty” (Photo: @carolmccolgin)

It was the genius of red-carpet hairstylist Mark Townsend, whose clients include Rachel McAdams and Dakota Johnson. Townsend had originally created a silk-velvet wrapped low ponytail for client Elizabeth Olsen to wear to the I Saw the Light premiere in Nashville: “Lizzy texted me and said I am thinking about a ribbon in the hair, so when she said she wanted a ribbon, I brought about 20 options — leather, suede, velvet — different widths.

Read the rest of this entry

Filed under: Press

February 16 2016

0 comments

‘Captain America: Civil War’ Spoilers: 3 Death Scenes Shot, Who Will Die? *Spoilers*

940-32

INQUISITR – Captain America: Civil War is now just three months and a few days away from release, which means that speculation over the blockbuster’s content continues to emerge. And the latest speculation is rather huge too, because it’s been suggested that one of the blockbuster’s main characters will die.
In fact, the rumors regarding who might perish have even provided some names about who might face their death in the film.

Obviously there might be some SPOILERS ahead, so if you want Captain America: Civil War to remain SPOILER free, then you probably shouldn’t read ahead.

Are they gone? Good. So, the latest rumors regarding Captain America: Civil War suggest that the body count for the blockbuster might include some of the most popular names from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.