Elizabeth Olsen on Her ‘Embarrassing’ Marvel Scenes, Recovering From Panic Attacks and Whether She’s Still an ‘Aspiring Stoner’
Kate Aurthur editor During her career, Elizabeth Olsen has played a broad range of characters, from a damaged cult escapee in 2011’s “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” to an in-over-her-head FBI agent investigating a murder in “Wind River,” to a narcissistic influencer in “Ingrid Goes West” — and, of course, the tragic, terrifying Wanda Maximoff (aka Scarlet Witch) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Next year, she’ll star in “Love & Death,” an HBO Max limited series about Candy Montgomery, a Texas homemaker who in 1980 had an affair with her friend’s husband — and then murdered her friend, hitting her 41 times with an axe. It’s based on a true story. Yet “Love & Death,” written by David E. Kelley, and directed by Lesli Linka Glatter, isn’t grim, according to Olsen — in fact, “I think we were trying to find the humor as much as possible,” she says. And as for playing a murderer in Candy, she compared the experience to getting into the character of Wanda. “What’s fun for me is trying to understand why people make the decisions they make,” Olsen says. “I just feel like that’s my role is to defend, defend, defend. And so I adore her, and I’m impressed by her.”