Their visit was a turnabout because, as a child, she visited the twins on the set of “ Full House” the sitcom on which they began (appearing) as infants in 1987. “Growing up, it was just what they did,” she said. “There was no before.” Elizabeth Olsen’s (earliest) acting credits came in a handful of brief cameos in her sisters’ popular made-for-video (movies).
“All of our family vacations were somehow involved or tied to my sisters’ working,” she said. “It wasn’t until really a few years ago that I realized how hard that must have been for them. I just thought it was a fun (vacation), but they were working every day, whether it was a cruise or a trip to Canada or whatever.”
She studied acting even before college but says that despite her sisters’ success, she always knew she wanted to be an adult actor rather than a child star. Her reasoning? She watched, loved and aspired to be in classic movie (musicals) — Frank Sinatra, in his “Pal Joey” and “Guys and Dolls” period, was her first crush — and she rarely saw kids popping up in them. Today, she still loves “Pal Joey” but said her own singing wasn’t strong enough for musical roles.
But theater remains an abiding interest. Her N.Y.U. course work included classes at the (affiliated) Atlantic Theater Company. She landed understudy roles in plays off Broadway 2008’s “Dust” and on 2009’s “Impressionism”, which helped her secure an agent, who put her up for the movie roles. “I never got to go on,” she said of the (understudy) jobs; rather, while waiting backstage, she wrote school papers on her laptop.
