Elizabeth Olsen Reveals What’s In Her Bag

I'm not an ingenue, never have been, never will be, but I am a 90-year-old woman in a 36-year-old's body. Hi, InStyle, I am Elizabeth Olsen, and this is Let's Unpack That. We are unpacking my carry-on bag that I've been using since 2012. In this bag, there are lots of things that are mine, and then there are things that InStyle snuck in there. In 2012, I went to the party after the Oscars. I was not nominated, and I just went. And I got to leave with this bag, with a monogram, and I wasn't even invited. I believe it's Gucci, hence the stripe. Okay, so the first glaring thing is this horrible color, this NYU hat, because I went to NYU. I was supposed to graduate in 2011, but I started working, and so I graduated in 2013, and I did not attend graduation, because I didn't know anyone who was graduating that year. But I really loved the Atlantic Theater Company, where I went to school for acting. This is next, these pins of Infinity Stones, because I'm in Avengers. And Thanos was in two Avengers movies, and I was in both those movies. And then I was in WandaVision, and then Doctor Strange. So being part of the MCU has meant so much to my life. It's given me a community that's hard to find when you have a creative job, where you're mostly alone and traveling. And there's a family that we get to return to. And I care a lot about playing the Scarlet Witch. I always hope to do something surprising every time I've been able to return. It's meant the world to me to be a part of it. Next, we have all these pamphlets. We've got infantilization land, the never-ending childhood parents assigned on arrival. Then we have capitalist world. What's the point of being rich if someone else isn't poor? And then we've got hermit world. After a lifetime of dealing with people's ----, why not enjoy an eternity of peace? So these are just examples of possible eternities from my film, Eternity, which is almost like a Billy Wilder homage, romantic comedy in the afterlife where I get to play a 90-year-old woman who has died and comes back in this body, but her soul is 90. And it's everything I've ever wanted to be. I've always felt like a 90-year-old woman, and now I get to act like one too. I'm not an ingenue, never have been, never will be, but I am a 90-year-old woman in a 36-year-old's body. I found Eternity to have just a really smart, honest, sincere, but very funny. The script really captured this feeling that when we're on this planet, we think we make these decisions that are supposed to determine the rest of our lives, and we kind of freeze when we make these pivots. And basically, it's the end of a life or the end of whatever length of life you were given on this planet. And you have this chance where all of a sudden, if your time's not finite, would you still make the same choices or would you choose differently? And when there's a different set of rules, what informs those decisions we make that inform the life we live? We have this small moment of time that we're on this planet. And so if that was extended into Eternity, how would we change our choices? We've got evidence of love, which was a book we used as resource for the HBO Max, I think they went back to HBO Max, show I did called Love and Death, where I played a woman named Candy Montgomery who murdered a woman that she knew. It's one of my favorite characters I've been allowed to play. I was trying to put as much heart and soul behind someone who's very easy to condemn because I think our world is filled with us all pointing fingers at who's doing something worse than we are and we're all doing bad things all the time. And so I loved making this and playing Candy Montgomery. Martha Marceau Marlene DVD, really special film in my career. It was the first film I made that came out. It's a psychological thriller directed by Sean Durkin and there's John Hawks who's lurking in the background. I made this the summer after my junior year of college, which is why I took so long to graduate. Very grateful to Sean Durkin, a good friend of mine and a special man and a really great movie, I think. And I don't like them all. No More Mutants. That's the said character I mentioned playing before, Scarlet Witch. It's a great line she has in The House of M and I've never been able to say it and I'd like to. To be a part of WandaVision specifically, it was an amazing opportunity to play with how we tell these stories. The MCU, the Marvel comics, they have such a decades and decades of history written. And so WandaVision, I felt like was a, if you're gonna make a Marvel project for television, might as well make the entire show also an homage to television. I've got one of my hats. I live, I have every color of this hat. My friend's restaurant in Sonoma, they make great merch. And even better food. And they're very special people. And Sonoma's a very important place to me because I'm from California and I split time between Sonoma and Los Angeles. Sandy beaches, these beaches with huge cliffs, the snow, the desert. In Sonoma, I love being a part of a community that where agriculture's at the center of it. And then a photo of my sweet friend, Aubrey Plaza. She and I were doing press for a movie we did together called Ingrid Goes West about influencers. However, when we made that movie, influencers, there wasn't a word for it. It was a very small movie that we made for a million dollars and we were trying to figure out how to get press for it. So we wore the same dress to our premiere and pretended that it was an accident. It seems like people now, you know, dress on theme for their project or something like that, which is great for people who are good at that. And this was like the thing that made the most sense because she's my stalker in the film. It worked out. Wind River is a film I made with Taylor Sheridan, who runs Paramount basically. And this was the first film he directed. It takes place on a reservation seeking answers from a woman who was found murdered. It was nice to be challenged on this project physically and emotionally and mentally. So when I travel, I have one of these cases that I keep everything I could ever think I might need, which is too many things because I'm a modern woman. This is just a scrunchie. It's important to have. I carry vitamin C with me to keep the immune system up. I don't really know if vitamin C keeps us healthy or not. I feel like I keep reading it on the well section in New York Times and I think there's an argument that it really doesn't do anything, but maybe it's just for my brain. Future is a product line I really love, obviously. This is their brightening serum, which I've become obsessed with brightening my skin because I also like being in the sun and I get freckles. BioEffect is a brand I'm obsessed with. I don't get paid by anyone. I just love these products and I just hope that if I talk about them here, they'll send it to me for free. And I'm gonna do one more. Sunscreen. I've become obsessed with sunscreen and this is an RMS sunscreen. It's tinted and it's the only makeup I use, basically, for my skin because they have different colors, but this pink one cuts the red out in my skin and it also has a lot of sunscreen. You know, you got deodorant in here. Oh yeah, this is a product I started using. You Beauty Super Hydrator. It's like a little, maybe a little too much for the summertime, but it's delicious. So that's what I got in there. Oh, and my deodorant. Sure, unscented. Please send me more. Book I'm reading, it's the fourth book of the Neapolitan series. Elena Fronte, I'm late to the game. I always have to have a book with me. If I, even if I had like a, if I were just wandering around New York, I would have a tote so that I could have a book with me. I don't like using my phone to keep me from, it's not even boredom because I find watching people to be so much fun, but it's such a terrible habit to think, oh, I can read something on my phone. I'd rather just read a fricking book. And so anyway, I'm this close to finishing book four in the last two months and it's been like a drug, reading it. I also journal every day. This is, because I journal every day, this is like started in July or June or something. It's an important part of my morning. I don't meditate, but I stretch and I journal and that's how I start every day. I have a journal for my morning and then I also have a work journal. Sometimes work thoughts come up while I'm journaling and then I go to the character pages or whatever and I transfer it. It's such a terrible thing when you're journaling and your pen starts to fail you and then you have to switch pens in the middle of this, of the same entry. That drives me crazy. And I've left this in a hotel room before, not this, but a different one. And they found it and they shipped it to me. And I was so grateful that I don't put my name anywhere. It's like, can't be that hard to figure out and not like anyone actually cares, but so there's that. And then, well, there's a lot in here. We've got nail filers and pads and Tic Tacs and this. I always travel with a mini sewing kit that I take from hotels. I think they're there for you to use. So might as well take them. This one needs to be kind of reset because I've been using it for buttons. So I need to put some buttons back in there and some different colored thread. And then I've got some, you know, blisters for your feet. This is, there's a top stick. It's just, there's a lot in here. Tissues, every, everyone's, oh, airplanes. In case you don't know, if you have a cold and you're traveling, it's really hard on your ears to always have airplanes. I could get really boring with the stuff I have in here. That was it. That's some of the stuff that's in this bag. I hope you enjoy my film, Eternity, in theaters in November. And these are some of the eternities that you can look forward to seeing. Thank you for watching.