Actress Elizabeth Olsen Facts

Who is Elizabeth Olsen?

Any relation to those famous twins - Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen? YES - Elizabeth is the twins youngest sibling.

I dont normally make Hollywood lenses on such young actors, but I think this young lady will go far.

Elizabeth chose of her own accord to NOT become a child actress despite having every opportunity to do so. She spent a lot of time on the Full House set as a child. She has always wanted to be an actress, and she grew up knowing the pitfalls of Hollywood as well as knowing what life is like on the set.

I have always admired actresses who exhibit that mental strength (Think Jodie Foster) and I think Elizabeth has that mental strength in spades. By choosing to not become a child actress, she avoided finding herself being typecast, washed up and spit out, before she had even graduated from high school, as many child actors end up.

I think Elizabeth looks very nice in this floral floaty dress, but she has already been nominated as one of the worst dressed at TIFF.

Image Source - Toronto Film Festival - September 2011 - Todd Williamson/WireImage.com

Elizabeth Chase Olsen was born in California in February 1989, the youngest of 4 children. Her older twin sisters were already famous on the TV series Full House - they are 3 years older than Elizabeth - and they had been on the series since they were 6 months old. There is also one older brother as well - James Trent Olsen (born 1984). Their parents are Janette and David Olsen (now divorced). Elizabeth is 5 feet 7 inches tall.

She chose to have a normal childhood, and attended both the NYU University Tisch School of the Arts and the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School in New York City. This year (2011) at age 22, Elizabeth is breaking out across the movie screen and wowing the public.

Elizabeth's first 3 movies in 2011 and they are -

Silent House

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding

I personally have not seen any of Elizabeth's movies yet - but they certainly sound like movies I want to see. I usually wait until movies come out on DVD or on Netflix before I watch them.

I do want to watch the movie - Martha Marcy May Marlene Movie - because I was involved with a cult for 6 months when I was in my 20's. Although my experience was not as extreme as that portrayed by Elizabeth in this movie.

Image Source - Elizabeth Olsen, Headshot, Hollywood Reporter, January 2011

Update - My review of Peace, Love and Misunderstanding is below.

This was Elizabeth's first big movie. She played Zoe, the 20 year old daughter who is a student at Columbia. She is a vegetarian, she hates violence, is anti-war, and hates seeing anything killed in a cruel manner.

But when her parents marriage breaks down, her mother leaves the family home, taking Zoe and her brother Jake with her. They end up back in Woodstock where Diane grew up.

Diane's mother Grace (played by the wonderful Jane Fonda) is your typical non-conformist hippie, still living in 1969. She even has a grow room in her basement.

Diane is a lawyer and she lives the politically correct 21st century lifestyle. She supports the troops, but doesn't really understand that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are in fact illegal and based on lies.

All 3 members of this family are looking for love.

Diane finds love with Jude - a local carpenter and songwriter.

Zoe finds love with Cole, the local butchers apprentice. She learns to stop being so black and white in her views and thinking.

Jake (a geek still in high school and clearly still a virgin) has his first kiss with Tara, who works part time at the local coffee shop.

Jake also has a camera and he films everything. Eventually a good amount of what Jake filmed in Woodstock, is edited into a short film called "Love in Woodstock". His film wins first place at the New York Youth Film Festival.

Considering how much of a non-conformist I am, I actually really enjoyed this movie. I am anti-GMO and anti-war. I am not a vegetarian, but I don't eat a lot of meat. I don't smoke anything at all - and that's probably the one thing about this movie that I disagreed with. Considering just how vehemently anti-marijuana the USA is, I would not have thought this movie would be so pro-marijuana, but it is.

I watched this movie on Netflix in December 2012.

The image above is of the last scene of the movie and shows 3 generations of a family. Zoe the daughter on the left. Grace the hippie grandmother in the middle and Diane the uptight lawyer on the right - played respectively by Elizabeth Olsen, Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener.

Image Source - Elizabeth Olsen at a preview of her first movie - Silent House - September 2010

This photo of Elizabeth Olsen was taken by Toby Canham for Getty Images at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2011. Elizabeth is wearing a Carven dress, a Jewelmint bag (I think this should be the brooch) and a bag by the Olsen twins' line, The Row.

Martha Marcy May Marlene Official Trailer

MMMM at TIFF Sept 12, 2011

Clip from Silent House

Interview at Sundance Festival January 2011

Interview about the MMMM movie

Personal Interview (16 minutes) done at TIFF Sept 2011