It's been a breakout year for Elizabeth Olsen, who up until this summer was better known as Mary-Kate and Ashely Olsen's little sister. But the 22-year-old actress has already achieved something her ultra-famous sisters have yet to do: received real praise for a performance.
Still it's not hard to remember her place in her family, and it's not hard to be "the curvy one in the family," as she calls herself, when your older sisters are the Olsen twins. At 5'7 she towers over her sisters who both under 5'2, yet, "it's very clear that I'm the younger sister," she explains to Marie Claire in their December issue. "My whole life they've been like women, while I've been trying to be a woman but still a kid."
Growing up in the shadow of two of the biggest child stars of all time, would be difficult for anyone, let alone if you wanted to forge your own way as a performer.
"I've always had a complex about being taken seriously. I never wanted anyone to think that I would use my family name to get me anywhere," she confesses.
It's that complex that is perhaps responsible the rave reviews she's received in indie films, "Martha Marcy May Marlene" and "Silent House."
Olsen takes her craft seriously, having spent summers at musical theater camp and and unlike her sisters she actually graduated from NYU, having attended the Atlantic Theater Company at the Tisch School of the Arts -- even spending a semester abroad in Russia at the Moscow Art Theater School, reports the magazine.
Although her sisters have largely left performing behind them (Ashley has said she's not interesting in acting, while Mary-Kate has continued to pop up occasionally on screen), Elizabeth is poised to bring a reputation for real acting chops to the Olsen name. In the spring she's set to star opposite Glenn Close in the period drama "Therese Raquin."
For more, click over to Marie Claire.
Check out the slideshow below to see some siblings that prove that talent really does run in their families.
