Elizabeth Olsen

Olsen at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con

Olsen made her film debut in the 2011 thriller film Martha Marcy May Marlene.[14] The film, along with her performance, received critical acclaim following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.[15][16] 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,[15][17] including those for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead.[16] She attributed her interest in the character to her own fascination with mental illnesses.[14] Olsen next appeared in the horror film Silent House, which garnered her "rave reviews".[18] Despite premiering at the Sundance Film Festival alongside Martha Marcy May Marlene, it was released in 2012,[19] during which she also starred in the thriller Red Lights and the comedy Liberal Arts.[20]

In January 2013, Olsen garnered a nomination for the BAFTA Rising Star Award at the 66th British Academy Film Awards.[21] 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.[22] 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.[23] 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 "alternating between saucy petulance and hysteria".[24] 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.[25] 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.[26][27] She and Dakota Fanning co-starred as teenage girls in Brooklyn in the film Very Good Girls, released that same year,[28] which Josh Duboff of Vanity Fair characterized as unfavorably reviewed.[29]

Olsen starred in the 2015 superhero film Avengers: Age of Ultron, a sequel to The Avengers,[30] joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe media franchise.[31][32] In the film, she portrayed Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch, which marked the comic book character's film debut.[33] She first appeared as the character in a post-credits scene of the 2014 film Captain America: The Winter Soldier, alongside Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who portrayed Maximoff's brother, Pietro.[31][34] Olsen played the part with an accent originating from a fictional country called Sokovia, which she described as similar to Slovakian.[32] She reprised the role in Captain America: Civil War (2016),[35] Avengers: Infinity War (2018),[36] and Avengers: Endgame (2019),[37] the last of which became the second highest-grossing film of all time.[38] With the role, Olsen rose to fame.[39][40]

Olsen portrayed Audrey Williams, the wife, manager, and duet partner of singer Hank Williams, portrayed by Tom Hiddleston, in the 2015 biographical film I Saw the Light, directed by Marc Abraham.[41] In 2017, she starred as a novice FBI agent in the mystery film Wind River and a social media influencer in the comedy-drama film Ingrid Goes West, both of which were released in August to critical praise.[42][43][44] Vulture's David Edelstein found Olsen's "incongruously high-schoolish demeanor" in Wind River problematic,[45] while Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote that she gave a "major eye-opener of a performance" in Ingrid Goes West, deeming it "toxic perfection".[46] The following year, she appeared in the Netflix film Kodachrome, playing a caregiver to a photographer, played by Ed Harris.[47] Olsen executive produced and starred as a young widow named Leigh Shaw in the Facebook Watch web television series Sorry for Your Loss, which premiered in September 2018.[48] She said the three years it took to develop the series enabled her to immerse herself in Shaw's impulses.[49] Critics reviewed the series positively,[50] and Olsen's performance, which earned her a nomination for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series,[51] was noted as "stunning",[52] "disciplined and sharp",[53] as well as "slyly sympathetic".[54] The series was canceled in January 2020 after two seasons.[55]

Alongside Paul Bettany as Vision, Olsen played Maximoff again in the superhero miniseries WandaVision, which premiered on Disney+ in January 2021.[56] In addition to complimenting Olsen and Bettany's chemistry, critics praised the cast,[57] with Vox's Alex Abad-Santos writing Olsen was brilliant in her portrayal and Linda Holmes of NPR highlighting her "indelible central performance" in their respective reviews.[58][59] Olsen earned a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie and Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film for her performance.[60][61] She reprised the role in the film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which was released in May 2022 to mixed reviews. Olsen's performance received praise, with Owen Gleiberman of Variety writing that it "generates an operatic fire".[62][63]

Olsen is set to star as housewife Candy Montgomery in Love and Death, an HBO Max limited series about a 1980 murder in Texas.[64]