Elizabeth Olsen on Martha Marcy May Marlene and Growing Up in Hollywood

I find it interesting that a lot of young actors choose to skip or put off college in lieu of working first, but you took the opposite approach. Why was it important to you to do things that way?

When I was 16, that was when I decided to start taking acting conservatories and training seriously. I started doing conservatory training then, and I also developed a really great relationship with my acting teacher at school. And also, aside from acting, actual education is a very important thing to me. I feel very privileged to be able to afford -- for my family to afford -- an education. I haven't graduated yet; I took a year off and I'm going back in fall so I'm still trying to graduate, but it's really my priority. I think there's nothing better than a higher learning just for learning's sake, even without a degree to get this job, or whatnot.

So when it comes to acting conservatories, I learned so much. I went to four different ones and all of them provided me with different tools. And you know, sometimes I had bad teachers in earlier conservatories I went to when I was in high school, then I learned later that there are these other people who were incredibly helpful. They're actually the reason why I started working. I was going to the Atlantic Theater Company, the school, and they would have me audition for understudy parts for play that they were producing. So when I was in college I understudied an off-Broadway play, and through the casting director I met from that I understudied a Broadway play. And then I met my agent. So literally, I started working just because of the conservatory school I went to. I'm so thankful to them, because they helped me start my career, which wasn't really part of the plan. I kind of wanted to graduate college and not worry about balancing the two, but that was what happened and I'm so thankful to them.

So there's an element of happenstance in how your film career came about, but growing up close to the industry, do you feel you took lessons from watching your sisters, Mary-Kate and Ashley, navigate their careers?

I started taking acting classes and doing musical theater camp and things like that when I was 8, and I went through a phase where I went on a few auditions and my ballet teacher told me that I couldn't continue ballet because I was going to keep missing ballet classes because of auditioning. So that was the time that I realized, "Well, I don't want to be a ballerina when I grow up -- I want to be an actor when I grow up. So I'll do ballet now!" Then I just naturally followed a course of being a student but knowing that this was a passion, and I actually grew up with a lot of really creative people so everyone in my class, all we did was make movies and plays together.

You appeared in some of your sisters' films as a child; how did that come about?

When I was younger, basically because there are four kids in my family and we're all five years apart, afterschool care just ended up being on set because it was easier for my parents, and there are so many people on set to watch us. So I'd be on set and they'd be like, "Hey Lizzie, can you put gum in your hair?" and I'd be like, "Sure!" That's all that was.

That sounds kind of fun, actually.

Yes! But that's what that was. And then, just by growing up in L.A. where I only know one person whose family isn't somehow involved in the industry, not just my sisters but I have lots of friends' parents who are very successful behind the scene, doing things like make-up. And there are also parents who are actors and whatnot. You watch these people and they're all so humble and they have grounded children and happy families, and it's because they all treated it was work instead of anything but. It's something that they're lucky to do, that they love to do, and that they get to do -- it's a job that they're fortunate to have. So because I was surrounded by people treating it like that I never thought of it as fame, celebrity, red carpets... I always thought those things can happen to you if the work you do gets recognized.

Martha Marcy May Marlene was one of two films you had at this year's Sundance Film Festival, which turned out to be something of a coming-out party for you. What was that experience like, and how has life changed in the months since now that the spotlight's back on the film?

Well first off, it was so thrilling because I also didn't understand the festival circuit world and how you get a movie sold and things like that. It was really fascinating, that screening a movie creates all this buzz, and you're isolated in this mountain where all people are talking about is what's happening there, so you feel like you're in this world that exists on its own, almost. It's this really surreal feeling, and it was exciting for people to acknowledge work that you enjoyed doing. And since... my life really hasn't changed much. I guess the only way it has changed is that I've been able to read better scripts that I probably wasn't able to read before. But nothing's actually changed. No one in my school knows who I am when I'm in class. It's all back to the same. I'm still in the same closet apartment in New York City. [Laughs]

Do you prefer it this way?

I do. [Pause] I just wish I had more storage space. [Laughs] I'm fine with this small square footage, but I wish I had more closet.

Martha Marcy May Marlene opens in limited release today; read Stephanie Zacharek's review here.

[This interview was originally published as part of Movieline's 2011 Fall Preview.]

Pages: 1 2