Elizabeth Olsen Opens up About Nepotism in Her Career, Being 'Very Aware' of Her Last Name

Elizabeth Olsen is putting in the performance of her career in WandaVision, and she has definitely earned her place on the A-list. However, the actress still realizes how the Olsen name recognition helped her get her start in Hollywood. With her older sisters, Mary Kate and Ashley, dominating the '90s and '00s pop culture landscape, how could it be otherwise?

Olsen opened up about how her last name got her in the right rooms early on in her career in a new interview with Grazia Magazine. "Nepotism is a thing and I'm very aware of it," she said. "And of course, I've always wanted to do it alone."

Olsen has been candid about growing up with such famous siblings in the past, explaining that she was just as obsessed with their clothes as other millennials were growing up. "Everything my sisters have ever worn in my entire life I have wanted to wear still as an adult today," she told SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Show. "I want their coats. I want their shoes. I want their dresses. And that is something that I never grew out of."

Mary Kate & Ashley built a media empire as children, starting with Full House and continuing into films like Billboard Dad and Passport to Paris, before pivoting to fashion and starting their own line called The Row. Olsen explained that her love of live performances was the main differentiator between her and her sisters.

"My sisters didn't love being on like live theater. They didn't love live audiences. They were pretty shy and it made them nervous," she explained. "I was the one that was like made everyone come to see me perform a musical that we made within two weeks and they had to see three of them every summer," Elizabeth continued. "They have to go to every dance performance...it was always unique to me that I loved theater and dancing and singing... It never felt like a following for me because it always felt like it was my path."

Olsen explained Off Camera with Sam Jones in 2018 that Mary Kate and Ashley gave her excellent advice before breaking into Hollywood. "Something my sisters always say, which might have come from my father at one point — my dad, I don't know, is that no is a full sentence and I really like that, especially as a woman," Olsen said. "Yeah, you can just say no. And I just really like that in all aspects of life."