From Wanda Maximoff to Love & Death: Elizabeth Olsen’s Best Roles

Sorry For Your Loss

Sorry For Your Loss is a criminally underrated series that, along with Elizabeth Olsen, stars great actors like Kelly Marie Tran, Mamadou Athie, and Janet McTeer. Unfortunately this series is only available to watch on Facebook thanks to that weird, and thankfully brief period in streaming history where everyone from SnapChat to YouTube were trying to make original TV shows. But to be honest, even briefly selling your soul to Mark Zuckerberg is worth it to watch this show.

If you love how layered Olsen’s performance of grief is as Wanda Maximoff in WandaVision, I beg you to watch Sorry For Your Loss. In this series she plays a less magical but just as compelling grieving widow struggling to move on after the death of her husband (played by Mamadou Athie). While trying to figure out how to live without him, Olsen’s character, Leigh, discovers that her husband Matt was keeping things from her, making her question how much she really knew about the man she married.

Ingrid Goes West

Ingrid Goes West is one of the best satirical movies about influencer culture and parasocial relationships and just so happens to also feature one of Elizabeth Olsen’s best performances alongside Aubrey Plaza. Olsen plays Los Angeles lifestyle influencer Taylor Sloane, a character who seems to have the perfect life. After becoming obsessed with Taylor’s instagram profile, Plaza’s character Ingrid transforms her entire life to be the perfect best friend to Taylor, even going so far as to steal her dog to give them an excuse to meet.

Even though Ingrid is supposed to be the unhinged one in the relationship, Olsen plays Taylor with enough of an edge, that as their friendship starts to fall apart it becomes clear that the two women aren’t that different after all. They’re both so obsessed with being liked by the right people that they’re willing to lose their true selves in the process.

Love & Death

Elizabeth Olsen’s latest role is in the Max original series Love & Death, where she plays Texas housewife Candy Montgomery. Based on real life events, Love & Death tells the story of a scandal that rocked the town of Wylie, Texas in 1980. When Betty Gore is brutally murdered by someone wielding an axe, Candy is accused due to her affair with Betty’s husband. But Olsen plays Candy as more than just a bored housewife gone crazy, you can feel her sadness and desperation as she goes to great lengths to inject some excitement into her life. If her filmography has shown us anything, it’s that Olsen does some of her best work in morally questionable and complex roles like this one.