Elizabeth Chase Olsen (born February 16, 1989) is an American actress. She was born in Los Angeles, California. She is the younger sister of the actresses Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. She is most known for her role as the Marvel Comics character Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) in a post-credits scene, Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019). She then reprised her role in the Disney+ miniseries WandaVision (2021), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) in a post-credits scene, and in the movie Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022).
Early life and education
Elizabeth Chase Olsen was born on February 16, 1989, in Sherman Oaks, California. Her mother, Jarnie, is a former dancer, while her father, Dave, is a real estate agent. She is the younger sister of twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who became television and film actresses as children. Olsen also has an older brother, a younger half-brother, and a younger half-sister. Her parents divorced in 1996. Olsen began acting when she was four years old, appearing in Mary-Kate and Ashley's projects, including the 1994 television film How the West Was Fun and the straight-to-video series The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley. As a child, she took acting classes and spent time at musical theatre camp. Olsen nearly quit pursuing acting in 2004 due to the media attention toward Mary-Kate's eating disorder. She went to Campbell Hall School in Studio City, California. Olsen attended New York University (NYU)'s Tisch School of the Arts, during which she took classes at Atlantic Theater Company and spent a semester at the Moscow Art Theatre School in Russia. She attained understudy roles in the 2008 off-Broadway production of the play Dust and the 2009 Broadway production of the play Impressionism, which led to her securing an agent. Olsen graduated from NYU in January 2013.
Career
Early roles and acclaim (2011–2014) Olsen made her film debut in the 2011 thriller film Martha Marcy May Marlene. The film, along with her performance, received critical acclaim following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Olsen earned several award nominations for her portrayal of the titular Martha, a young woman suffering from delusions after fleeing her life in a cult and returning to her family, including those for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. She attributed her interest in the character to her own fascination with mental illnesses. Olsen next appeared in the horror film Silent House, which garnered her "rave reviews". Despite premiering at the Sundance Film Festival alongside Martha Marcy May Marlene, it was released in 2012, during which she also starred in the thriller Red Lights and the comedy Liberal Arts.
In January 2013, Olsen garnered a nomination for the BAFTA Rising Star Award at the 66th British Academy Film Awards. She played Edie Parker, novelist Jack Kerouac's first wife and the author of the Beat Generation memoir You'll Be Okay, in the biographical drama Kill Your Darlings. She appeared in the American remake of the 2003 South Korean film Oldboy, playing Marie Sebastian, a nurse who helps the protagonist, played by Josh Brolin, find his daughter. That same year, she starred as the titular Juliet in an off-Broadway production of the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. The New York Times critic Ben Brantley described her portrayal as "an open book, and a slim volume, alternating between saucy petulance and hysteria". She played the leading role in In Secret, a film adaptation of Émile Zola's 1867 novel Thérèse Raquin. The film was released in February 2014. Later that year, Olsen starred in the monster film Godzilla, opposite Bryan Cranston and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, which received positive reviews and grossed $529 million against a $160 million production budget. She and Dakota Fanning co-starred as teenage girls in Brooklyn in the film Very Good Girls, released that same year, which Josh Duboff of Vanity Fair characterized as unfavorably reviewed.