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Elizabeth Olsen Says She Considered Dropping Last Name to Avoid Being ‘Associated’ With Mary-Kate and Ashley
Elizabeth Olsen revealed she once considered dropping her last name because she wanted to create her own identity outside of sisters Mary-Kate and Ashley.
The Avengers: Endgame actress, 32, was trying to forge her own path in Hollywood and confessed she thought very seriously about changing her moniker in 1999 amid the twins’ rise to fame. “During that time, I thought ‘I don’t want to be associated with [Mary-Kate and Ashley]’, for some reason,” she shared with Glamour UK in their new April 2021 digital cover story.
“I guess I understood what nepotism was like inherently as a 10-year-old. I don’t know if I knew the word, but there is some sort of association of not earning something that I think bothered me at a very young age,” she continued.
The WandaVision star said she was going to refer to herself as Elizabeth Chase instead (the latter is her middle name). “It had to do with my own insecurities,” she shared while reflecting on her past.
Elizabeth said she was determined to find her own success as a performer and didn’t want to ride on her sisters’ coattails. At the time, Ashley and Mary-Kate, 34, were becoming household names while playing Michelle Tanner on Full House.
They were later cast in more TV shows and films, including the 1995 romantic comedy It Takes Two and the 1999 flick Passport to Paris. Mary-Kate and Ashley continued to act all the way until 2010.
Nowadays, Ashley and Mary-Kate are focusing on their growing fashion label that was first launched in 2006. So, what about Elizabeth? Fans can expect to see her in the upcoming movie Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness set for release in 2022.
Elizabeth said she very much values Mary Kate and Ashley’s life advice to this day and talked about how they once told her the gem that “no is a full sentence.”
“I always felt like I could say ‘No’ in any work situation – if someone was making me feel uncomfortable – and I just feel like that’s what we need,” she said in the cover story. “We don’t have to follow suit if it doesn’t feel right. We need to be listening to our gut. There was a time where women were competing with one another and now we’re at a time where women are holding each other up.”
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