Elizabeth Olsen on playing a superhero, social media and her famous sisters
"We all just want to be noticed," Olsen said of social media.
— -- Elizabeth Olsen is pretty busy these days.
The 28-year-old actress has gone from indie darling to full-fledged movie star and two of her latest films, “Wind River” and “Ingrid Goes West,” will be released this month.
Olsen will also reprise her role as the fan favorite superhero Scarlet Witch in the upcoming Marvel film, “Avengers: Infinity War," the kind of blockbuster for which she hasn't always been considered in her career.
“There was a part of my career where I was like, ‘Why am I not being seen for bigger films?’ Because I grew up being obsessed with ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘Star Wars,’” Olsen said in an interview on ABC News’ “Popcorn With Peter Travers.”
“Why can’t I do that as well?" she asked. "And my agent or manager said, ‘It’s because people don’t know that you want to do those movies.’”
Watch the full interview with Elizabeth Olsen on ABC News' "Popcorn With Peter Travers" in the video above.
Olsen said she was attracted to Scarlet Witch because she is a “fascinating and a deeply emotive character.”
“It’s not just a very strong superhero with, like, a weird Achilles heel. It’s someone who I think is driven by a deep dark emotion,” said Olsen. “So that’s why I was like, ‘This sounds like if I’m going to be a part of one of these [bigger films], this is the right thing to be a part of.’”
The leather pantsuit-wearing hero shares similarities to Olsen’s character in “Wind River,” a murder mystery set on an Indian reservation.
Olsen plays Jane Banner, an FBI agent solving the murder of a young girl found dead by Jeremy Renner’s character Cory Lambert.
"I had to learn a lot about shooting guns," said Olsen. "I had to learn a lot about clearing houses. Those are things I never understood, that I was always scared of."
From a young age, Olsen said she was always acting or singing.
“I was the girl who would sit in front of my mother’s vanity, and I would try and replay something from ‘Grease,’” she said.
“Everything to me was make-believe,” Olsen continued. “[In fifth and sixth grades], we made every oral presentation in class [into] a play or a musical.”
Though Olsen’s older twin sisters Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen got started in show business before her, Elizabeth Olsen said they don’t have many suggestions for her.
"They don’t weigh in to me, I think they’re just generally supportive," she said. "I think it would be hard for them to give me some constructive criticism, I think that’s hard for families and siblings to do."
Watch the full interview with Elizabeth Olsen on ABC News' "Popcorn With Peter Travers" in the video above.
In “Ingrid Goes West,” which is out in theaters today, Olsen plays the social media influencer Taylor Sloane, who makes a living posting photos of herself, her meals and her fashion.
The movie shows a dark side to social media, from constantly rewriting photo captions to what happens when people have obsessive fans like Ingrid Thorburn, played by Aubrey Plaza.
“What’s happening with the social media culture is that, we all just want to be seen. We all just want to be noticed, whether that’s committing something that’s like a violent act or posting a photo of you looking great by the beach,” Olsen said. “We get this new satisfaction from it and I think that there is something that is really messing with how we interact with the world because of that. I don’t think it’s all negative, there are positives to it.”
Olsen said she just recently joined social media herself.
“It honestly seems like a better form of marketing in a way,” she said. “It’s a weird balance because it also has to do with what you reveal about yourself and what’s private and what’s personal ... I try to make everything kind of like, with a wink.”
Download the "Popcorn With Peter Travers" podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play Music and Stitcher.