Elizabeth Olsen Would Not Star In a Modern-Day Romcom

Elizabeth Olsen has long been described as an old soul. And while the concept has never been lost on her, her newest film, Eternity, has only helped crystallize her thoughts on the subject.

In David Freyne’s fantasy romcom, Olsen plays Joan Cutler, a 90-year-old matriarch who succeeds her husband, Larry (Miles Teller), in death by only one week. They both arrive at the Afterlife Junction, which is basically a train station that leads to a convention floor and surrounding hotel. They’re both given a week to decide where they want to spend eternity, and despite a bevy of seemingly idyllic worlds to choose from, a wrench is thrown into the works when Joan’s late first husband, Luke (Callum Turner), appears on the scene. The film quickly evolves into a love triangle where Joan must choose between Larry, her caring but unspectacular husband of 65 years, and Luke, the fallen war hero who delayed his own eternity-related decision until he could see his bride again after 67 years.

In this iteration of the afterlife, each character appears at the age when they were happiest, and so Olsen is essentially playing a 90-year-old woman inside her own 30-something-year-old body. It turns out that she wouldn’t have it any other way, because she doesn’t believe a contemporary romantic comedy is in the cards for her. 

“This might sound silly, but being 36 years old, I can’t really imagine myself doing a romantic comedy as someone in the modern world. I don’t really feel like I know how to capture pop culture of this moment, because I’m so distant from it,” Olsen tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Eternity’s Nov. 26 theatrical release. “But I felt like I could do this romantic comedy as a 90-year-old [in a 30-something woman’s body], and it felt like an opportunity that I wouldn’t have again. It’s something that feels unique to how I feel in some ways.”

Eternity is A24’s latest of several recent love triangles. Celine Song’s Past Lives (2023) and The Materialists (2025) account for two of them. Last year’s Babygirl and the upcoming Marty Supreme also have triangular elements. For Olsen, the renewed fascination around this on-screen dynamic is partially the result of today’s technology being so option-oriented. 

“We’re in a time where we’re just obsessed with all of our options. We want to know what the perfect option is for anything: ‘What’s the perfect life hack? What’s the perfect brand of toothpaste?’” Olsen says. “We can throw a bunch of information into [ChatGPT], and we want it to give us all the right answers. So there’s something to be said about using storytelling to show these different paths we could have gone down, or that we could go down, because we’re in a world where we just want endless options all the time.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Olsen also explains how Eternity has amplified her specific thoughts about aging and mortality. 

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I had a very interesting experience at my Eternity screening. When I arrived at the theater, my chaperone told me that her sister would be screening the film with us. Afterwards, I went out into the hallway to give my reaction, and my chaperone was upset with herself. She said, “I didn’t think to look up the plot of this movie. My sister’s husband just died recently. He was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and he was gone a month later.” 

Oh my gosh.

So her sister had gone to collect herself, and then she came back to chat with us. She described the moments that triggered her emotionally, but then our exchange ended on a hopeful note. She ultimately said she appreciated Eternity’s message that there’s a reason life takes the turns that it does. So you received a thumbs-up from a very specific test audience.

Wow. I was just on the Today Show, and Sheneille [Jones] works on the hour that I was there. And before I went on, she said, “Not to bring it down or anything, but I lost my husband earlier this year, and I watched your movie yesterday. I really enjoyed it, and it really created a sense of comfort for me. I actually felt a sort of healing.” So those are reactions that I typically don’t get to have one-on-one with people, and you don’t really think about it going into it. You just think about the universalities of it. So it’s meaningful to hear that people are having those experiences. 

Has Eternity made you think a lot more about mortality?

I think about mortality all the time. But Eternity has actually made me think even more about how aging is such a privilege and how badly I would love to grow old. It’s something I’d already been thinking about, because I wasn’t lucky enough to meet more than one grandparent. You just don’t know if you are going to have that opportunity to grow old. You don’t know when your time is going to come. But growing old is something that some of us are lucky to be able to do, and so I think more about how lucky we are if we do get to do it. 

You made a point to me recently that your recent non-franchise work reflects more of your personal taste. So in what ways does Eternity suit your preferences?

The script reminded me more of something my mother would’ve shown me as a little girl. It reminded me of a funny older film that she would’ve loved. And yet, at the same time, the writing is contemporary. There’s this screwball element along with these universal truths and comforts that I thought was a nice opportunity. 

This might sound silly, but being 36 years old, I can’t really imagine myself doing a romantic comedy as someone in the modern world. I don’t really feel like I know how to capture pop culture of this moment, because I’m so distant from it. But I felt like I could do this romantic comedy as a 90-year-old [in a 30-something woman’s body] who’s lived an entire life, and it felt like an opportunity that I wouldn’t have again. It’s something that feels unique to how I feel in some ways. So I connected to the elements that are more timeless within the script and the storytelling.

Have you received a lot of questions about which version of yourself would appear at the Afterlife Junction? (Writer’s Note: When characters die and arrive in this particular afterlife, they appear at the age of their happiest self.)

I have! As much as it’s a rule — and a very clever rule for this world and this story — I don’t know if we can quantify when we are happiest. We look back at the past with nostalgia, and we look at the future with hope, but we have a hard time being present. I do have very clear memories where I can’t stop saying how happy I am, but I would like to think [my happiest self] is somewhere in my future. I would rather it not be somewhere in my past.

And when you are asked to describe your ideal eternity world, what’s been the go-to? 

My go-to answer has now been mocked by a British journalist. (Laughs.) I’ve always idolized the British countryside, and I was like, “Well, now I feel dumb for answering that way.” I love looking at the cliffs and the sea, and wearing all my outdoor gear because it’s rainy and cold, in a charming little town with lots of great people and one great restaurant. So it would be some fantasy version of that, but then a part of me is like, “Should I just say Venice, Italy in February?” Maybe that’s just an easier response because it exists.

The Assessment had a very unusual triangle. I hesitate to call it a love triangle, but it certainly had a lot going on inside it.

(Laughs.) Yeah.

Eternity is more of a classic love triangle, and love triangles are back in a big way, largely due to A24. Do you have any theories as to why we’re so drawn to this dynamic? 

We’re in a time where we’re just obsessed with all of our options. We want to know what the perfect option is for anything: “What’s the perfect way to do this? What’s the perfect life hack? What’s the perfect brand of toothpaste? What’s the perfect toothbrush?” We can now ask ChatGPT for options. We can throw a bunch of information into it, and we want it to give us all the right answers. So there’s something to be said about using storytelling to show these different paths we could have gone down, or that we could go down, because we’re in a world where we just want endless options all the time. So there’s a way to do that through storytelling when you have this threesome [of characters] or whatever people would call it.

Did you and Miles Teller both reference Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller for Joan and Larry? Or was that more your thing?

It was more my thing. When I started bringing that up, he was still finishing a job, and I don’t think he was ready to talk about references yet. He then went off and watched Jack Lemmon and Tom Hanks, and he came in with his own point of view. I actually haven’t asked him if he ended up thinking about [Meara and Stiller] at all. But what was important to me was not their exact accents, but the regionalism and their bickering and bantering with one another. So it’s something that Miles is already so familiar with just by being raised in the Northeast, but it might’ve been more of my obsession.

Speaking of accents, whenever I hear Callum Turner’s American accent, I’m immediately reminded of Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers voice. 

Oh, funny.

You’ve worked with both actors, so did it ever catch your ear? 

No, I never once thought about it. But that’s so funny because so many people have commented on how great his American accent is. 

Oh, it’s definitely good.

But it’s funny that it reminds you of Chris Evans. I don’t think of them as having the same sounding tonal voice, but maybe that’s because I’m so used to hearing Callum in his British accent.

I hope I haven’t alerted you to it in such a way that you can’t unhear from now on.

Well, now I want to see, so I’ll have to watch the movie again.

The notion of Joan and Larry’s “ordinary love” is something I bumped up against. To me, all love is extraordinary, especially when it lasts 65 years. It’s so hard to attain and maintain love. Do you think ordinary love actually exists? 

When we don’t know a couple’s personal stories and we see that they live on a very American cul-de-sac, we assume we know what their day-to-day life feels like. We assume they do very traditional things that we might consider to be cookie-cutter. And if we don’t know the details, we could think of those moments as ordinary. But it’s only until you see them up close that you realize they are extraordinary, which I think is the point of using the phrase “an ordinary love story” for this film. So it might seem like they lived an ordinary life, but every love story is extraordinary once you’re up close to it.

Have you seen Sam Esmail’s Panic Carefully yet? 

No, but I do some ADR on Friday, so I’ll see some of it then.

And how did the Martha Marcy May Marlene reunion go between you and Sean Durkin on the FX pilot, Seven Sisters?

It was so fun. It was more fun than I ever expected. It was really nice to get to work with each other again after 15 years of going off and developing ourselves in different ways — with life and with work. So it really was a treat.

Do you think Martha is still looking over her shoulder? Do you think she’ll ever find peace?

However it sounds, I never really think about my characters beyond the last frame of whatever the story is. If I think about characters I’d love to return to, it’s usually ones that are a little bit more fun. But in terms of Eternity’s archival memories, I would love to go back to that time when we were making it. We hadn’t done too many things to know what the machine is that you put it through afterwards, and so there was such a purity to making it. I truly had no idea what going to a film festival looked like or felt like, nor did I know what doing press looked like or felt like. So it was such a pure moment of making something, and I would love to just be a fly on the wall and watch us do it again. [Writer’s Note: Eternity has an “Archive Tunnel” in which you buy a ticket to watch notable moments from your life.]

When we last spoke for The Assessment, you thanked me for covering a smaller movie, and before I could respond, I accidentally hit the exit button on my Zoom. 

(Laughs.) It was so hard to get people to hear about The Assessment, and so it really meant a lot every time someone would write about it.

Well, as I meant to say then, I love covering the smaller stuff like Martha, Wind River and The Assessment. I enjoy both, but smaller films tend to linger in my mind longer than most blockbusters. Do your memories from your smaller projects recur more often than the big-budget work? 

It’s a mixed bag. A lot of it is the life that happens while making something. I don’t know if HBO Max’s Love & Death is small or big, but so much life happened to me during that time. And with Sorry for Your Loss, it’s not that I have so many memories of being on set, but I do have memories of life during that time because filming takes up so much time in your life. So when I think about moments filming, it truly is a mixed bag. I think about things from Marvel, and I think about a lot of moments from Assessment. I loved getting to make that film so much, and it really was an important one to me.

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Eternity opens in movie theaters on Nov. 26.