The classic TV show that gave Elizabeth Olsen nightmares: “We had to take a break”
Elizabeth Olsen grew up immersed in the world of television thanks to her twin sisters, Mary Kate and Ashley, being huge child stars who began their careers as infants in the sitcom Full House.
As her sisters grew older and took the lead in a succession of their own shows and kids’ movies, Elizabeth was drafted into the family business at only four years old. However, after a few years of acting, she chose to leave stardom to her sisters and tried to be a normal girl, albeit a normal girl who adored watching the sitcom her siblings starred in.
“I loved Full House,” she told W magazine, “We had all the VHSs, and it was very easy to watch at my house”.
The lure of the family business was too strong, though, and by the time Elizabeth entered high school, she decided she wanted to give acting another try. This decision set her on the path to a movie and TV career the likes of which her sisters could only dream of. Interestingly, though, despite growing up in the prime years of what would later be dubbed the ‘Golden Age of Television’, Elizabeth didn’t exactly keep up with a lot of the prestige shows of that era.
Instead of watching Baltimore cops trying to topple a drug empire or Walter White trying to build one, or even a bunch of suits trying to sell hell to the devil that is The Wire or Breaking Bad, or Mad Men, respectively, her TV tastes remained resolutely old school. Hell, she didn’t even watch any of the typical teen fare that her peers would have been mainlining every week, swooning over Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or The OC, or Gossip Girl.
“I never did Dawson’s Creek, I never did any of those shows,” Elizabeth chuckled, revealing her true love for family sitcoms, “I loved Family Matters, Step by Step, The Torkelsons”. No, I have no clue what The Torkelsons is, either.
Amusingly, even when Elizabeth rose to fame for her roles in movies like the dramatic post-cult life experience Martha Marcy May Marlene, mystery thriller Wind River, and her recurring role as Wanda Maximoff in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she continued to find comfort in old TV during her downtime. During lockdown, for instance, she was filming in London, and found herself binging one of the cosiest mysteries ever put on television.
“I never really sat down and watched Murder, She Wrote until then,” Elizabeth smiled, before waxing lyrical about everything she loved in Angela Lansbury’s iconic amateur detective series, “It’s fabulous. Great guest stars, great whodunits. My favourite moment is when they solve it and play it out for you in the solving of the mystery and going backwards. It’s just delicious, and it feels good to watch.”
In truth, perhaps Elizabeth’s unfamiliarity with modern prestige TV may explain her reaction when she finally decided to check out the show many experts credit with launching the Golden Age in the first place. When she began working her way through that uncompromising, beautifully written mob masterpiece, she pretty quickly realised that it was no cosy mystery, nor was it the kind of show you necessarily had fun watching. Instead, it grabbed her by the throat and showed her something she’d never seen before on the small screen.
“We’ve been watching The Sopranos,” Elizabeth told Buzzfeed, “But we had to take a month break because we were having really bad nightmares. It was too stressful”.
Elizabeth’s visceral reaction to David Chase’s iconic creation was understandable. After all, it depicted a level of moral ambiguity that had rarely been delved into on regular American network television and included several truly upsetting scenes in each season. To her credit, though, she couldn’t deny the sheer quality of what she was watching, so after a four-week absence to clear her head, she noted, “I think I’m emotionally ready to get back into it. I can only watch like two episodes at once. It’s a heavy thing!”
