Elizabeth Olsen may share a famous last name, but her path to acting wasn’t the same as her older sisters.
The 36-year-old actress recently spoke with InStyleto discuss how she managed to build a strong career for herself without relying on Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s success and carved out her own path while managing to stay out of the relentless spotlight that followed them as child stars.
Despite the twins having huge success in the 1980s and 1990s, they stepped away from acting completely by 2011 and are now focused on their fashion careers, running their successful luxury brand, The Row.
Elizabeth Olsen, who is three years younger than the twins, started acting when she was just four years old, appearing in her sisters’ projects, such as How the West Was Fun and The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley. She didn’t make her film debut until after the Olsen Twins stopped acting in 2011, when she starred as Martha in the psychological thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene. Her performance earned widespread critical acclaim and several award nominations.
After studying acting and graduating from New York University in January 2013, Olsen appeared in films such as Silent House, Godzilla and Wind River. But, she gained global recognition for her role as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, starring in Avengers: Age of Ultron and the Disney+ series WandaVision. Now, the actress is busy promoting her upcoming film Eternity, which also stars Miles Teller and Callum Turner.
Elizabeth Olsen is the cover star for the Winter 2025 digital issue of InStyle magazine.
While Elizabeth’s older sisters were on set playing Michelle Tanner on Full House from 1987 to 1995, then starring in many movies and TV shows afterward, such as It Takes Two, Two of a Kind, Billboard Dad, So Little Time and Mary-Kate and Ashley in Action!, it wasn’t surprising that acting professionally crossed the Marvel star’s radar.
“I thought I wanted to be a child actor, but then my ballet teacher wouldn’t put me in The Nutcracker because I’d missed so many rehearsals. And that was the only Nutcracker I wasn’t in my whole life because I was auditioning for TV or film or whatever,” Olsen revealed to InStyle. As a child, Elizabeth was a serious dancer and took ballet lessons. “I wanted to have the career I have now, but I didn’t need to do it until later. I wanted to do recess with my friends.”
Elizabeth Olsen stuns for InStyle Magazine on October 21, 2025.
Olsen eventually got back into acting in high school and took classes at Atlantic Theater Company while studying at NYU. She also spent a semester at the Moscow Art Theatre School in Russia, where she began to take acting more seriously. In 2008, she was an understudy for an off-Broadway production play Dust, and the 2009 Broadway production of the play Impressionism, which led to her securing an agent.
These experiences laid the foundation for the wonderful actress she is today, allowing her to take on roles in both indie films and blockbuster franchises while maintaining her personal life out of the public eye.
Olsen’s upcoming film, Eternity, has already premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last month and will be closing out the Chicago International Film Festival on Sunday before being released theatrically nationwide on November 26.
This story was originally reported by Parade on Oct 21, 2025, where it first appeared in the Celebs section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.