Elizabeth Olsen

Biography:

Elizabeth Chase Olsen was born on February 16, 1989, in Sherman Oaks, California. Her mother, Jarnie, is a former dancer and personal manager, and her father, Dave, works as a real estate agent. Her father has Norwegian roots, while her mother has French, German, and Italian ancestry. She is the younger sister of twin fashion designers and former child actresses Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and she also has an older brother, James “Trent” Olsen. After her parents divorced in 1996, her father remarried, and through that marriage, the siblings gained two half-siblings, Courtney and Jake.

Olsen began acting at age four, appearing in several of her sisters’ projects such as How the West Was Fun (1994) and The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley video series. That same year, she was signed to BMG Kidz following her sisters’ musical success, though she never released music. As a child, she took ballet and acting lessons and attended musical theatre camp, at one point aspiring to become a Wall Street accountant before returning to acting in high school. However, she almost gave up acting in 2004 due to media attention surrounding Mary-Kate’s eating disorder.

She attended Campbell Hall School in Studio City, California, and later studied at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, taking classes at the Atlantic Theater Company and spending a semester at the Moscow Art Theatre School in Russia. During this time, she became more serious about acting, gaining experience as an understudy in Dust (2008) and Impressionism (2009), which helped her secure an agent. Olsen graduated from NYU in January 2013.

Her film debut came in Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011), which premiered at Sundance to widespread critical acclaim. Olsen’s portrayal of a woman struggling after escaping a cult earned her nominations for several major awards, including the Critics’ Choice and Independent Spirit Awards. She followed this with Silent House (2012), Red Lights (2012), and Liberal Arts (2012).

In 2013, she was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award and appeared in Kill Your Darlings as Edie Parker, in Oldboy as Marie Sebastian, and as Juliet in an off-Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet. She then starred in In Secret (2014) and Godzilla (2014), which was a commercial success.

Olsen joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch, debuting in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) after a cameo in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). She reprised the role in Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019), gaining international recognition.

Outside the MCU, Olsen portrayed Audrey Williams in I Saw the Light (2015), starred in Wind River and Ingrid Goes West (both 2017), and appeared in Kodachrome (2018). She produced and starred in the acclaimed series Sorry for Your Loss (2018–2020), earning a Critics’ Choice nomination.

In 2021, Olsen reprised her Marvel role in Disney+’s WandaVision, earning Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for her performance. She continued the role in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), receiving strong reviews. In 2023, she portrayed Candy Montgomery in HBO Max’s Love and Death, earning another Golden Globe nomination.

Olsen’s upcoming projects include Eternity (2025), Panic Carefully, Seven Sisters, and Love Child, as well as voicing Wanda Maximoff in Marvel Zombies (2025).

She has cited Diane Keaton as a major influence, along with her sisters, though she once considered changing her name to “Chase” to avoid comparisons. Olsen became an atheist at 13, holds a New York real estate license, and serves as an ambassador for Bobbi Brown Cosmetics.

She previously dated actor Boyd Holbrook and later married musician Robbie Arnett of Milo Greene in 2019 after three years of dating. The couple live in Los Angeles and co-authored the children’s books Hattie Harmony: Worry Detective (2022) and Hattie Harmony: Opening Night (2023), inspired by their shared experiences with anxiety.