“It’s not really the art I consume”: why Marvel has left Elizabeth Olsen with a point to prove
In the 1990s, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were everywhere. If you’d have told someone that they had a sister who was not only also an actor, but would one day become more famous than them, they’d have laughed at you, but then Elizabeth Olsen proved everyone wrong.
The youngest of four Olsen siblings, Elizabeth is now by far and away the most prominent and in-demand member of the family. While she has done plenty of great work across her career, there’s one role that she owes her success to more than any other.
Olsen made her first appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a post-credit scene for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. This set up her proper debut in Avengers: Age of Ultron, in which she played Wanda ‘Scarlet Witch’ Maximoff, quickly becoming an integral part of the Marvel machine.
Her relationship with Paul Bettany’s Vision formed one of the emotional cores of Infinity War and was so strong that it got its own TV show. She’s claimed she’s not going to be in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, but never say never.
Being part of the biggest film franchise of all time is hard work, where, between 2018 and 2022, Olsen only appeared in Marvel movies, leading some to question whether the Disney-owned hit factory was robbing us of her talents elsewhere. She has allowed herself to make other films, though, and according to an interview with NPR, this has been very intentional.
“I’ve spent so many years doing Marvel that I feel like all my other jobs have to really reflect my personal taste,” she revealed, “As much as I love being a part of this world, and I’m proud of what I’ve been able to do with the character, it’s not really the art that I consume. Which I’ve been very honest about. And so, I feel like I have to really focus on what to couple all of those films and shows that I do with Marvel to showcase my taste.”
2017, the year after Olsen became a Marvel mainstay, was full of interesting choices. She appeared as an influencer being stalked by Aubrey Plaza’s title character in Ingrid Goes West and then paired up with fellow Avenger Jeremy Renner for the tense drama Wild River. She rounded out the year by playing the nurse of a dying man in the Netflix film Kodachrome, continuing this pattern in the years since, offsetting her Marvel ventures with smaller projects.
We’ve seen what other Marvel actors can do when the chains come off. One of Robert Downey Jr’s first roles post-Endgame was in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, for which he won an Oscar; yes, he did make Dolittle before that, and yes, he did return to Marvel at the earliest possible opportunity, but shut up.
It’s clear that Olsen isn’t one of those actors afraid of doing franchise work, having grown up on Star Wars, but she knows there’s more to life than special effects and explosions, and her commitment to exploring every nook and cranny of cinema is commendable.
