‘We’re All Going to Die, and I Think About It a Lot’

Elizabeth Olsen has played a vengeful witch, a cult escapee, an accused murderer, a grief-stricken young widow, and a dead-eyed Instagram influencer. In her latest movie, Azazel Jacobs’s His Three Daughters, she’s doing something truly radical — playing a quiet, relatively unassuming, normal human woman. As Christina, the youngest of a trio of sisters, Olsen spends the film playing mediator between Natasha Lyonne’s depressed stoner, Rachel, and Carrie Coon’s domineering control freak, Katie. All three are living together, briefly, in a Lower East Side condo to wait at their dad’s deathbed, bickering over groceries and reopening ancient familial wounds.

The film is a true indie — Jacobs wrote the parts for each actress and hand-delivered them an analog script, then shot the whole thing in 17 days in a real New York City apartment. For Olsen, who is fantastic as a woman who keeps trying to make herself smaller and smaller until she erupts, the role marks something of a return to form. After spending a solid part of the last decade careering around the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she seems eager to return to the eccentric indies upon which she built her early career. At Vulture Fest, we talked about the times she appeared in her sisters’ projects, her “terrible” early days in theater, her chaotic first movie roles, the moment she started really choosing her films, the 50 directors she wants to work with next, and, of course, the certainty of death.

We’re a little bit out from the release of His Three Daughters in September. Has anything changed for you since it first came out?
It’s just nice talking about it now because I have been able to speak with more people who found the film in different ways: friends of mine who said, “Why didn’t you warn me?” And you know, there’s a part of me that thinks very practically about our collective experience having to deal with mortality and hospice. I assume, if it’s not something you have directly had to deal with, that there’s someone very close to you who has.

For friends who’ve said, “I’m actually very happy you didn’t warn me, because I found it to be very cathartic and it made me feel not alone in the experience,” I felt, in the end, that it captures a moment for them that felt very confusing and complicated. Aza writes into the movie that films don’t always get it right, which is why he omits so many things, like looking at the father in the room, because he didn’t really know how to show that well. That’s Aza’s words; I’m sure he would have done it beautifully. But yeah, it’s been a nice film to talk with other people about.

Aza wrote this movie specifically for you, right? He hand-delivered you the script. What was that like? What did he say, what was your response?
So Aza and I worked on a show in 2018, Sorry for Your Loss. Since then, he and I stayed very close friends and talked a lot about things we were working on. We were always trying to collaborate, and so I wasn’t that surprised.

Maybe a quarter into it he said he started imagining me, and he started imagining Carrie, and he started imagining Natasha. He didn’t know Natasha that well, but he knew Carrie and I fairly well. He wanted it to feel like this protected space, where it didn’t feel like it was a part of the movie system that we’ve all become used to. He knew the investors he was going to, so it was really just about protecting this project, not wanting it to live in a PDF file that could be forwarded to a bunch of people, not wanting to make an announcement that we were even making it so that there’s no expectation as to when one would see it or submitting to festivals or anything like that. He just hand-delivered the script to me and mailed a copy to my agent and managers so that they also felt included and not ignored.

Old school.
It was kind of that all the way through. It was such a short film when we were shooting it three years ago, for 17 days in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It felt like we had no expectations of what would come of it, that the whole point of the exercise of doing it was to get to work with each other. And it really filled up such a more expansive space than just 17 days. It felt like a true, pure experience that you kind of only have in your first couple of projects. I think Aza really wanted a return to making something that was so completely his without other cooks in the kitchen telling him what to do from a financial perspective. So he wrote something that could be directed and made for so little financially.

And what about the character? I read that you were kind of surprised by the character that he wrote for you. 
Well, she’s the sweetest person I’ve ever played! Sometimes when you’re reading a script, you think, Oh gosh, how am I going to do this? Someone who moves out West from NYC, who is a Dead Head? I don’t even listen to that music. Then there was a deeper level of understanding it, where I got to really think about the women in films that represent NYC that I grew up with. I thought about Carol Kane, I thought about Dianne Wiest, I thought about Diane Keaton. I thought about those women as these kinds of buzzy, hummingbird-like, neurotic, at-any-moment-could-break-down-into-tears type characters I adored growing up, and it became a different thing for me.

Aza knows me very well in my personal life, and he’s so much kinder and sweeter than I am, so I think I’ve become kinder and sweeter around him, so maybe that’s why he thought of me for Christina, because he just gets that out of people. Even with Natasha — she’s gnarly, she’s got this kind of nuts personality, she’s totally formidable, and just kind of comes in and takes up this space. You could watch Aza communicate with her and say, “I don’t have reactions or responses. I need to think about things and meditate on them, so I just need you to be patient with me.” He’s so direct in that way that it kind of softens everyone, and you start communicating at a different level.

When did you find out about the Carrie and Natasha of it all? 
From the beginning, he said, “I wrote something for you, Carrie, and Natasha, and I would love it if you all said ‘yes.’”

Do you remember the first time you met them? 
The first time we met was in our rehearsal space. We had multiple apartments in the buildings that we were working in. Instead of trucks and trailers, we just took up spaces within this apartment building. And we did a read-through. I have this very clear memory of meeting Carrie for the first time that day because she came in in this onesie — a very tactile, gray jumpsuit, like she was just doing construction this morning. And I could smell what it smells like when McDonald’s sits in a car or something. I smelled that. All of a sudden, she whips out this egg-sandwich McMuffin type thing that she got from this vendor on the street, and she’s just talking and telling us this story about her kids while sitting wide-legged and just eating this sandwich. I was like, Oh, is this what Chicago is? Because she’s like, “I’m a Chicago actress!” It was so specific. And to me, Natasha’s just kind of like a … she has this hood on and she’s a creature of the night. I fell in love with them.

Can you tell me about the first day of shooting?
The film starts with these women playing into the ideas of what our family expects of us, and the performance that is going home and being with siblings. That’s something that I could relate to on many levels, and I think we all can. You start performing this person that’s not even really you anymore, whether you’re going back in time or whether it’s a projection of what you want them to see you as, or maybe you’re just a raw nerve because you’re anxious to be with all of them.

Did you find your way into a sisterly dynamic quickly? 
We all had to understand how to sound like we were part of the same family. And so there was an adjustment there of us trying to figure out technical things. But the feeling like sisters thing — I think it’s so on the page and clear. As actors, you often go into situations and immediately try to psychoanalyze the people you’re about to work. Okay, are they gonna be like a brick wall? Is this actually who they are? Are they doing a performance of themselves? And all three of us are just completely ourselves very quickly, and so I think that helps create an intimacy that sisters could have.

Also, we had the privilege of getting to shoot in order because we were in one location and our exteriors were just right outside that location. These sisters are really getting to really know each other in a different way, while Carrie and Natasha and I were also getting to know each other in a different way. Because it was such a small, contained film, we were all quite literally on top of each other all day long. There is no retreat to someone’s private space. There is a real tool in shooting in order, because you really get to build upon something.

I have two sisters, and something I feel like you guys really nailed is the little glances, the passive aggression, the way that the littlest things could just destroy one another. I’m curious how much you talked about that as a trio.
We talked a lot about the alliance between Katie and Christina, and their more shared history that Katie holds on to in a really immature way. Christina wants to distance herself from it more and be a little bit more courteous and empathetic to Rachel. There’s a scene where Christina is trying to create her own space and she just sits in this chair against that thin dividing wall in the apartment. It’s almost like a rotating door of Katie being confused by her behavior and Rachel being confused by her behavior when really all she’s trying to do is just have her alone time.

Natasha had a great quote about you recently. She said that you specifically are always thinking about how we’re all going to die. I’d love to know more about that.
Yeah, I think about mortality constantly. I think it’s because I’m not one of those people who’s like, “I really thought about it and I’m okay!” you know?

About death.
Yeah. I’ve met people who are like, “It’s gonna happen and I’m okay.” They’re usually surfers.

Or they’re Dead Heads.
Yeah! They’re like, Yeah, a shark might get me, but if it gets me, I’m doing what I love! I’m not one of those people. Both my mom’s parents died in two separate car accidents when she was in her 20s, and so I don’t drive fast, you know? We’re all going to die, and I think about it a lot.

I feel like you’ve done a lot of projects about grief and dying.
Yes, and I don’t mean to!

You don’t mean to?
No! It’s not like some sick obsession of mine. I think a lot about other things. Right now it’s primarily about spiritual higher purpose that predates monotheistic religions.

Can you say more?
I’m reading a book called God, Humans, Animals, Machines. I’m just trying to understand what it means to have a body and a soul.

Can you fill us in when you figure it out?
Yeah, sure! I think we’re kind of in a cultural death valley about remembering what actually connects us all, and we just keep dividing and dividing and dividing and hating each other, so I think about that all the time.

Great.
Sorry!

No, I also think about those things quite often. But let’s talk about the physical fight you get into in this movie.
I mean, to yell like that is quite a thing to get into. I’ve never been in a physical fight with people in my family! There was a “Stop hitting yourself” moment and maybe a couple drownings by my brother, but that’s it.

Tell me about filming this scene, because you said you’re doing this sort of hummingbird repression thing in this film. Was this moment cathartic to film because of that?
You know, the thing that I actually had to work most actively on was forgetting Diane Keaton’s performance in The First Wives Club, where her husband is sleeping with her therapist and she starts screaming, “I’M SERIOUS!” or whatever. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing my impression of that. When I read the scene, I was like, Oh shit! This is all I’m going to be able to think about because I watched that movie 128 times.

That is so funny.
You know that part.

I know exactly what you’re talking about. Were there ever any sort of sisterly arguments that the three of you had, or was it completely blissful peace?
I don’t know if I’d call them arguments, but maybe there were discussions or disagreements, always about how our day was going from a very technical perspective. Are we making sure we have enough time for something that’s important? Natasha and I both get very involved in how the day is run, how it’s scheduled, how things are prepared or not prepared. And as I’ve mentioned, she has a bigger personality than me, so I just kind of let her be that person, then I would participate in ways where there’s a need for balance or something. But never like a real disagreement about anything.

And you lived with Natasha or Carrie?
No. It’s confusing because we had all those apartments in the building, but that’s not where we were sleeping at night.

I’ve read that you lived together!
Carrie lives outside of the city, so all day long she and I had a shared apartment as if it were a trailer, and a lot of journalists have misquoted us talking about it. Even when we say, “We don’t mean literally sharing an apartment.” It has happened so many times! Carrie will text and be like, “They got it wrong again!”

We’re correcting the record.
We’re correcting the record, yeah.

Tell me a little bit about what you’d do in your fake apartment you did not live in.
We all became obsessed with the New York Times game Spelling Bee. And our goal was to be a queen bee every day. We often pulled Tracy Letts, Carrie’s playwright husband, who has a great vocabulary, to help us achieve that. That was something we did every day, the three of us. Aza was very exhausted by it.

I know you’re not a Dead Head, but if you were to follow anyone around the country — band, artist, spiritual leader — who would you follow?
So this is a problem I’ve had since childhood: I’m not a fanatic. I never had a toy I loved that much, I never had obsessive attachments, which has allowed me to move around the world doing my job without my heart being broken. I love being in transition always. And so that’s how I answer that question.

That’s incredibly healthy.
I don’t know, actually. What would you do?

Who would I follow around? I’m kind of obsessed with Ariana Grande, so I feel like she’s my Grateful Dead.
She’s really entertaining. She’s got a great character that she adjusts for whatever reasons, whatever she’s doing. I love that pop stars get to do that. Pop stars really just like to be in a phase.

They have eras. We don’t get to have eras!
I mean, we could. I just can’t put that much effort into analyzing how I am projecting myself onto people, but I appreciate that it’s part of the entire art of theirs. Pop stars are important iconic images. “Important” might not be the right word, but it’s nice to have — for a distraction from our mortality.

To stop us from staring into the void. I know you’ve said previously that you don’t want to do movies that are just streaming, and theatrical release is very important to you. Tell me a little bit about navigating that. This movie was in theaters briefly.
Yes, which is as much as they do at Netflix. They do two weeks, and I was so grateful that they did that. They gave us multiple 35-mm. prints of the film so people could see it projected at multiple theaters in L.A.,and I know in New York. They took care of this analog nature of the film that we loved.

Was it because of something that you said?
It was something that Aza said. Aza wouldn’t have made a deal if he didn’t get to have a theatrical release. They did a 35-mm. print because it was something we asked for as a group, and it was something they knew would create more of an “event” around going to the theaters. I mean, going to see a film print of something, anything can happen. There is a human involved in projecting what you’re watching, and you can see stitches sometimes based on when people are changing the reel over.

Streaming is sometimes the only option for some small films to be seen. Especially right now, when acquisitions are very complicated and we’re all trying to understand how to move things forward while people are constantly losing money. But I just don’t have an interest in making something with the intention of knowing it’s only for streaming. I agree with what Paul Thomas Anderson said, which is that there are these Marvel films that help keep theaters able to pay the rent. I do think that’s the relationship. I do think streaming films have become the disruptor within the film industry. So to me it’s really about if you can ask for it and you can demand it.

You recently talked about how at this phase in your career, you’re more willing to stick your neck out for films. You’re producing and you’re going into the pitch rooms. I just read that Todd Solondz piece in The New Yorker about how he’s trying so hard to get Lovechild made, which you’re cast in. What’s going on there? 
I’m not a producer on it, but I’ve never hustled more for a movie that’s having a hard time getting made. There’s so many things I could say about that in private. It really comes down to having really responsible budgets. But not every movie can be made with favors for crews, right? You can’t ask crews to be paid a really shitty wage. So I don’t know. I find it all to be really frustrating right now, specifically for film.

I just have to remember that there are studios that do quite a range — Searchlight being one of them. But every project I want to do usually is a little adjacent to a genre or whatever, and everyone wants to know, “What’s that genre?” I don’t know what the hell the genre is for His Three Daughters. I find it funny and find that it has a lot of heart. Maybe it’s a dramedy. What is that even? I find that that question is part of raising the money, and it’s so boring.

Can you tell us anything else about the Todd Solondz movie?
No. But if anyone’s writing about this interview, if you guys want to make a big, bold notice that says, “Todd Solondz needs money to make a movie,” that would be great!

It seems like in your heart, you prefer to do indie projects versus a big Marvel thing. How do you think of it in your mind? Is it “One for them, one for me?”
I’m not sure yet. I never really had the mentality of “One for them, one for me,” I think because Marvel has been such a consistent thing I’ve been able to return to and has created a — what’s the word — some feeling of insurance in my life that has given me freedom to choose other jobs. And returning to Marvel has always felt like a choice, not someone making me do something. When I say “always,” I mean the last six years of the 11 I’ve been working with them. Every time it’s character-driven, and it’s always like, “We have this idea and that’s why we want you to come back.”

Can I ask about your very first acting role? You were 4, and you were in the music video “B-U-T-T Out” with your sisters. What do you remember about that role in that time in your life?
I think I vaguely remember shooting that.

I rewatched it and they’re kind of bullying you in it.
So it was this constant that happened. When you have four kids and two of them are working, the other two go to the set after school, and that is your daycare, which is nice because there’s teachers there and things like that. Sometimes they would just say, “Hey Lizzie, we wrote you into something.” There was really no more thought than that.

I did love performing as a kid, and did a lot of ballet. I did a lot of theater camps, I did some acting classes. I thought maybe I wanted to try it out professionally, maybe because of Jenna Malone in Stepmom or something.

What was your relationship to having sisters in the industry, and how did that shape the way that you think about fame?
My sisters — I felt like what they did was so hard and so full-on for their whole childhood. I thought of it as some of it being fun, but I also think they had professional jobs starting at 6 months old. It made me want to focus on theater, because that felt like a thing that wasn’t going to feel so much like “so-and-so’s sister’s thinking that they are going to do this thing.” This was well before “nepo baby” was a term, and it doesn’t even really apply to me considering my parents. But there is a form of nepotism when you are adjacent to people who have a lineage to a job that you want, regardless of what the industry is. So I focused on theater. I moved to New York and I was at the Atlantic Theater Company school through Tisch and started understudying when I was 19. I auditioned for Garry Hynes, who does all of Martin McDonagh’s plays.

Do you want to do theater again?
I was supposed to do something on the West End a year ago, last fall into winter, and it fell apart, sadly. It’s a two-hander and then the actor was no longer able to do it, and for whatever ticket-sales reason, it was hard to replace that actor. But I do want to do it. I think WandaVision really woke up my body to full-body acting again in a way that, I don’t know, dislocated my lower half in some ways. I’m really hungry to do theater. But I’ve also had a very terrible experience doing Romeo and Juliet.

What happened?
The “CliffsNotes” is the director directed a different play in rehearsal and then when we moved into the theater, she directed a totally different thing for the theater and then we had to open in two weeks or less. It was just kind of a disaster. I was 24 or 25. Daphne Rubin-Vega was my Nurse, and she was telling me, “Lizzie, this is not every experience. Don’t let this deter you!” And I was like, I’m totally freaked now! And the plays I understudied were terrible, you know? So I didn’t actually end up having the greatest of experiences in the theater.

It sounds like the direction of your career has surprised you. Could you have expected the things you ended up doing?
There’s a part of me that wished there was a bit more time of me trying and trying. Because in my mind, I think, Well, if I were to have had five years of doing some things that no one really saw … There is some sort of work where you put into your own taste, your own dreams, your own wishes. I didn’t really know what I was doing then. Martha Marcy May Marlene was an accident, and the job I filmed around the same time as Martha was this terrible movie called Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding. It was Bruce Beresford who directed it, and it was Catherine Keener and Jane Fonda. It was a cool group of people, but it was a terrible movie. Sorry, it is. It’s like a bad family movie!

So you don’t think you were being super-strategic at the beginning?
Yeah. I think it’s because I just felt so lucky to be there or something.

When did you feel like, Oh, I actually know what I’m looking for, I’m choosing things. When did that switch for you?
I think it was because I had this time when I was doing Sorry for Your Loss for two years, Marvel projects, and it went into WandaVision and then WandaVision went into …

Love and Death?
No, Doctor Strange, then I did Love and Death. And it was kind of around then that I was like, Marvel, done. That’s that chapter. And so now what? And Love and Death was such an amazing character for me, and I loved the ensemble and had so much fucking fun doing that. So it really was then that I just started trying to figure out, How do I get back to being considered? There’s a list of filmmakers I’d love to work with.

Can you list a few?
There’s maybe like, 50. I have so many filmmakers in Europe that I’m obsessed with, and who knows if they ever do English-speaking films. But I think I realized that I wasn’t being considered for things that I would like to be considered for because I wasn’t doing enough of this. His Three Daughters was an attempt at this. Doing a film that hasn’t come out yet that was in Toronto called The Assessment was trying to do this with a new filmmaker, Fleur Fortuné. And so there have been these clear choices, I think, that have been more about that shift.

This is like a new pop-star era for you. You’re in an era.
I’m in an era.

Is there someone whose career you look at and go, I want that?
I think there’s quite a few. I think Carey Mulligan, I think Andrea Riseborough, I think Michelle Williams. I think they’re always transforming, whether it’s slight or big swings. I find them all to be really interesting, and I want to watch them all the time.

You’re doing an Albert Brooks–style romcom next, correct? 
Yes.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Yes. It’s called Eternity. We filmed it this summer with Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Miles Teller, Calum Turner, John Early. Our director, David Freyne, is an Irish filmmaker, and it’s like in the style of Broadcast News or a Billy Wilder film. It’s a romantic comedy with humor and heart. I get to play a 92-year-old woman who’s in the afterlife. I guess we’re back to death!

You can play our Elizabeth Olsen–themed Cinematrix here.